Senior analyst Graham Dench weighs up the strength of the Classic generation

With clashes looming between the cream of the Classic generation and older horses, Graham Dench supplies an Assessor special

It is too early to draw firm conclusions about the relative merits of this year's Classic crop and their immediate predecessors, but we can make a few tentative deductions and ought to be a lot wiser after Saturday's Coral-Eclipse.

As things stand, the three-year-old sprinters, headed by Caravaggio, Lady Aurelia, Harry Angel and Blue Point, seem very strong. Caravaggio has yet to be beaten and appears an outstanding six-furlong performer, while Lady Aurelia has looked out of this world over five furlongs in her Royal Ascot victories.

It is no surprise they are red-hot favourites for the July Cup and Nunthorpe respectively, for there's a strong suggestion they will be more than a match for their elders.

The milers also look well up to scratch. While dual 2,000 Guineas winner Churchill blew out in the St James's Palace Stakes and there is a suspicion he might have been flattered somewhat in a tactical race at Newmarket,the runner-up Barney Roy was a very good winner at Royal Ascot and could be a strong contender over the extra two furlongs at Sandown on Saturday.

While we must wait until the Sussex Stakes to see how Churchill fares against the older milers, among whom Ribchester stands out, his stablemate Winter's first opportunity against her elders could come as soon as next week's Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket.

Winter has a tough act to follow in Minding, an exceptional filly who carried almost all before her last year over a broad range of distances, but she was a very good winner of the fillies' Classics at Newmarket and the Curragh, and with a Racing Post Rating of 119 she is only 3lb behind Minding at the corresponding stage of the year.

It's a shame we will not be seeing Minding on the racecourse again until the autumn, if ever, but Winter's Coronation Stakes win completed a Group 1 treble previously achieved only by Attraction, and she did it by an aggregate of nearly nine lengths, compared to Attraction's four.

Coronation Stakes: Winter confirms herself the stand-out three-year-old miling fillyCredit: Edward Whitaker

It would be very interesting to see how she fares in the Falmouth, but a word of warning: Attraction started odds-on but was no match for four-year-old Soviet Song.

The division in which the three-year-olds look relatively weak is over middle distances. There is possibly a stand-out filly in five-length Oaks winner Enable, but the close finishes to the Derby, the Irish Derby and the French Derby suggest that there is little more than 2-3lb between top colts Wings Of Eagles, who has been retired, Cliffs Of Moher, Cracksman, Capri, Waldgeist and Brametot.

However, Brametot might yet prove considerably better than his current mark, and it's not too late for hitherto almost unconsidered three-year-olds to emerge as true stars – remember, at this stage of the 2011 campaign neither Nathaniel nor Danedream had any pretensions to winning Europe's top all-aged middle distance races.

It's also possible that Cliffs Of Moher or Eminent will emerge from the middle-distance pack at Sandown, where the intermediate trip and stiff finish could easily show them in a different light.

Three-year-olds have won three of the last ten Eclipses, with Golden Horn winning well in 2015, and Hawkbill leading home a three-year-old one-two 12 months ago. That's good going considering on two occasions they had no representatives, and on another four, including when Golden Horn prevailed, they only had one.

However, it has not all been one-way traffic and this year there is a revised weight-for-age scale to take into account. The limited evidence available from handicaps suggests that tinkering with the allowances – broadly speaking three-year-olds receive 1lb less now over middle distances – has not made a significant difference to strike-rate.

However, there are bound to be occasions when that 1lb makes all the difference, and Saturday's race might turn out to be one of them.

Racing Post Ratings

3yo crop leaders:

Caravaggio 125

Churchill125

Lady Aurelia124

Barney Roy122

Harry Angel122

Enable121

Wings Of Eagles121

Blue Point120

Capri119

Cliffs Of Moher119

Cracksman119

Lancaster Bomber119

Winter119

Top older horses:

Ribchester 125

Highland Reel 123

Minding 122

Mutakayyef 122

The Tin Man 122

Deauville 121

Tasleet 121

Decorated Knight 120

Marsha 120

Order Of St George 120

Seventh Heaven 120

Ulysses 120

Big Orange 119

Frontiersman119

Hawkbill 119

Idaho 119

Limato 119