WHEN I was just completing my Intermediate Certificate at school, Dermot Weld was saddling Sutton Place to win the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot. She was his sixth winner at the great meeting, the first having been achieved just five years earlier.

Klairvimy, with Buster Parnell in the plate, won the 1973 King Edward VII Stakes, a year before Highest Trump and Red Alert gave the master of Rosewell House a day to remember when recording a double, scoring in the Queen Mary Stakes and the Jersey Stakes respectively. Johnny Roe was abroad both of the winners.

Wally Swinburn partnered four winners for Weld, among them Nanticious and Sookera in 1977, before Sutton Place won the Coronation Stakes 45 years ago. A half-sister to Nikoli and Captain James, Sutton Place was a daughter of Tyrant, and her Royal Ascot victory was actually the only time she passed the post in front in her career.

The Coronation Stakes has been a Group 1 race for 35 years now, and Tahiyra’s victory gave Dermot Weld his 18th success at the famed meeting. Day Is Done, Committed, Big Shuffle, Brief Truce, Gordi, Irresistible Jewel, In Time’s Eye, Rite Of Passage, Princess Highway, Mustajeeb and Free Eagle are the other who complete the tally.

Brent Thomson once, Michael Kinane three times and the much-missed Pat Smullen six times were all integral to the success story, and now the name of Chris Hayes can be added. I was forcibly struck by the rider’s comment after the race that some observers felt that he was the only chink in the armour, but he will no doubt prove time and again that such criticisms are groundless.

Which brings me to Tahiyra herself. The homebred daughter of Siyouni credited His Highness the Aga Khan with his 35th European classic victory when she won the Tattersalls Irish 1000 Guineas, and she descends from a family acquired as part of the Dupré dispersal in 1977. That purchase consisted of 82 horses, and represented some very successful families.

Tahiyra is still a filly that it is possible to believe we have not seen the best of yet. Due a rest now before an autumn campaign, I have no doubt that there will already be thoughts of next year, and the possibility of keeping her in training. After all, her half-sister Tarnawa was at her best at four, when she won three Group/Grade 1 races, a feat that her younger sibling has already matched. One is only left to wonder what Tahiyra could yet achieve.