SAXON Warrior’s win in the 2000 Guineas was predicted fairly widely, if not by me, but the success of Billesdon Brook in the following day’s QIPCO 1000 Guineas caught almost everyone unaware.

If your instinct is to regard the 66/1 win as a downright fluke then the evidence of the stopwatch is that you are probably wrong. In a well-run race (leader got to three furlongs out 0.23s quicker than in the colts’ race the day before), Billesdon Brook ran the mile just 0.07s slower than Saxon Warrior had done despite conditions seeming very similar.