HAS anyone seen the summer? It has been remarkable how many of the major racing events in Ireland and Britain have been affected by unseasonal rain in recent months, including the Irish 2000 Guineas at the Curragh in late-May, a far-from-Glorious Goodwood in August, and, most recently, the opening day of the Ebor Meeting at York on Wednesday.

Goodwood got nearly a month’s worth of rain in one half-day, while York got “only” a week’s worth in the same period, but it was still enough to turn the latter from good-to-firm to somewhere between good-to-soft and good. It did not spoil the party however as there were two top-notch winning performances on that opening day – from Cracksman in the Great Voltigeur and from Ulysses in the Juddmonte International. The latter produced the better timefigure between the two so we will concentrate on that first while the remainder of York will be covered in next week’s Time Will Tell column.