Weather gods have been kind as Starman bids to live up to his name for Walker

Lucy Verasamy and Kirkland Tellwright have done their bit – now it is all down to Starman to live up to his billing.

Ed Walker has been like a cash-strapped ice cream salesman these last few weeks, desperately hoping for a dry end to the summer so he can make up for missed opportunities.

He had a glorious day in the midsummer sunshine at Newmarket, when the star of his Lambourn yard gave him the first Group 1 of his career. The four-year-old looked the sort to rack up a sequence of top-level victories that afternoon when putting up a dominant display in the July Cup, in which he came from off the pace to beat most of the best 6f horses around by a length and a quarter.