We know City Of Troy is better than this - but only one Eclipse winner has been rated worse in Racing Post Ratings history

Holding an 11lb edge over his nearest form rival in comfortably the lowest-quality Coral-Eclipse of the past ten years, Saturday's race should have been a walk in the park for City Of Troy, but in struggling to a Racing Post Rating of 120 the Derby winner clearly fell significantly below expectations.

That holds both for him and a Group 1 contest that boasts a high-class ten-year median figure of 125 for the winner. That matches City Of Troy's Derby-winning figure and the hope was that an impressive success at Sandown would save the race to some extent, but under conditions considered not to his liking he fell below that Epsom level.

Whether the officially soft ground was the only factor in this display is debatable, with the Topspeed going allowance for Saturday's round-course races similar to that for last year's Dewhurst and suggesting the effect of the rain was overestimated. We know that City Of Troy is better than this though, and hopefully he can build on his Derby success with a performance more in keeping with his star status.