THE Dubai Duty Free Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury tends not to have a great bearing on the following season’s classics, but the last two winners have been Ribchester and Harry Angel, so there are legitimate hopes for this year’s winner, James Garfield, especially as he broke the course’s six-furlong juvenile record in the process.

That was, unsurprisingly, down to pretty quick conditions; not for Newbury the biblical downpours and overflowing drains experienced elsewhere.