GOLDEN Horn was brilliant, a 130-rated champion and classic winner who scored four times at the highest level as a three-year-old. He pipped Storm The Stars on his sole start at two and added the Listed Feilden Stakes at Newmarket, but though on course for Epsom, many doubted his ability to stay that distance.

My examination of his pedigree for The Irish Field showed he was bred with the potential to stay, and could improve for the step up in trip, so there was no surprise here when he followed his defeat of subsequent Irish Derby winner Jack Hobbs in the Group 2 Dante Stakes with a wider-margin victory against that colt in the Derby.