A different feel to an unusual Ebor - but this trends-busting veteran needs to be kept onside

Time will tell whether this season’s Ebor is an anomaly rather than the beginning of a future trend, but creeping in at the foot of the weights for Britain’s richest handicap has seldom been as straightforward.

If you discount the 2020 running, which occurred in the midst of Covid, lockdown restrictions and markedly reduced prize-money, the basement rating required to get a shot at the Ebor since 2017 averages out at 102. Here we have almost half the field running off a double-figure mark and that includes four joint-bottom weights who are rated 95.

Typically, horses would have needed to have shown their hand at Listed/Group level to harbour any realistic Ebor participation ambitions. For unexposed four-year-olds Sweet William, Adjuvant and Real Dream that has not been a prerequisite this year. But in the case of lightly raced stayer Yashin, he might have just blown his mark in this unusual running due to the races he has performed in.