Damysus (GB)

As the only runner in Thursday's G2 Al Basti Equiworld Dubai Dante Stakes with a sole outing to his name, David Aykroyd's Pride Of Arras had a bit to find but at the end of York's time-honoured Derby trial he had little to prove. Set alight by Rossa Ryan heading to the two pole, the Ralph Beckett-trained Sandown maiden winner surged by a wall of closely-matched peers to take total control a furlong from home. At the line, the 18-1 shot who descends from Juddmonte's G3 Park Hill Stakes winner...

The return of Seven Days earlier this week allows us to close the book on the stopgap that was Winter Watch. Before you know it the first Classics of the season will be upon us, leaving the cold, dark months that spanned 13 editions of this column since it first came into being in November as nothing but a distant memory. Albeit not too distant, I hope. After all, the whole reason why we embarked on this journey in the first place was with those very Classics in mind, informed...

When City Of Troy (Justify) and his entourage descended on Southwell for a racecourse gallop on that feel-good afternoon back in September, it was commented on that the number of racing fans there to see him--thought to be 700-plus--was larger than would usually turn up for a typical day of racing there. The Nottinghamshire track traditionally staged low-grade fare which offered no real prospect of seeing a horse with talent even remotely comparable to that of the Derby winner. It was also commented on that the test provided by the...