Still only March and already Galileo adding to his Classic hand

For obvious reasons, it frequently proves prudent not to get too carried away by runaway winners in the mud during the first days of the turf campaign.

But such wholesome circumspection proved wholly misleading in Ireland last spring, when The Gurkha won a Navan maiden by nine lengths and Jet Setting had them strung out like steeplechasers in hers at Cork.

Before those two, moreover, there had already been Awtaad - albeit the going wasn't quite so testing when he bolted up in a handicap at the very first meeting of the season.