THE idea that the name given to a person, horse, or whatever, helps to determine its destiny is known as nominative determinism, and the few remaining nominative determinists must have been on especially good terms with themselves after the horse called Time Test passed his own personal time test with flying colours at Royal Ascot on Wednesday.

With the possible exception of Acapulco’s Queen Mary Stakes win, Time Test’s success in the Tercentenary Stakes was THE time performance of the entire week, and one of the very best of the year so far.