Hawkbill hits new high to deny The Gurkha

The starting prices strongly suggested it would be Coolmore who would be celebrating the joy of six in the Coral-Eclipse with odds-on The Gurkha.

Instead it was Hawkbill, a £30,000 supplementary entry at the start of the week, who made it six wins in a row in a meteoric rise up the ranks to give Godolphin a fifth winner of the £525,000 feature.

Godolphin’s previous four winners of the midsummer Group 1 showdown between the generations, all trained by Saeed Bin Suroor, had started life elsewhere, from Halling in 1995 through to their last winner Refuse To Bend 12 years ago.