This Clarence House looks close to a toss-up - so only one horse appeals at the prices

Fans of big-budget movies and video games know by now the difference between a reboot and a sequel. The 2025 Clarence House falls into the second category, compared with the same race in 2022 that has been invoked so often in the last week.

The distinction is an important one. At its most obvious, Jonbon is not Shishkin, who won this race for the same trainer (Nicky Henderson) and jockey (Nico de Boinville) three years ago. It is not much further along the difficulty curve to point out that Energumene, second that day, was eight then and 11 now.

In 2022, Shishkin was 5-6 favourite to beat 5-4 shot Energumene. Shishkin's peak Racing Post Rating coming into the race was 175, Energumene's was 171. That provides the first piece of context for sizing up this race.