Resurgent Godolphin enjoy an in-house success

Not a vintage Eclipse but a notable strike for the Classic generation and a more than worthy winner in Hawkbill whose burgeoning reputation is buttressed by an admirable attitude to the sharp end of a race when the gloves are off and its bare-knuckle time.

The only three-year-olds on duty were runner-up The Gurkha and Hawkbill who was spanning the chuncky gap between Group 3 and 1, and who was better than the half-length winning margin might suggest.

Always handy behind Time Test's pacemaker, Hawkbill led over tw furlongs out but at the two-pole proper The Gurkha – very much more on the premises than when held up somewhere near Membury services in the St James’s Palace Stakes – was driven by Ryan Moore to lead yet it never looked like being either a decisive or race-winning move.