The Roaring Lion we saw here looked like a colt whose time had come

To Derby or not to Derby, that is the question for John Gosden after Roaring Lion proved a serious cut above his Dante rivals on Thursday, coming home strong to win by four and half lengths.

There is always plenty of entertainment to be had at a post-race Gosden debrief. There is an authority and fluency about it all that rubs some folk up the wrong way, but not this correspondent.

He simply knows more about the game than most people ever will – think Towser, Vincent, years in the states and Classics endless.