Sayidah Dariyan

Her record reads three wins and six places from ten races — a 30% win rate, meaning she wins roughly 1 in every 3 races she enters, which is a strong return at any level. More telling is what she has won. A Class 1 at York is one of the most prestigious races in Britain, and she got there after Hughes took a significant gamble by running her against horses rated 110 when she was only rated 92 in a Class 2 at Chelmsford in April. That is the equivalent of a club footballer being picked for a Premier League squad and scoring. He had seen her working brilliantly at home and backed his instinct. It paid off.

Her jockey Billy Loughnane described the key to how she races: she settles beautifully when tucked in behind the leaders, conserving energy, and then produces what he called an electric turn of foot when asked. In plainer terms, she saves herself, then sprints. On normal ground — neither wet nor parched — that combination has produced 2 wins from just 3 races, a 67% win rate that is exceptional. In the five top-level races she has contested, she has won one, which sounds modest, but the fact she is regularly competing at that level as a 4-year-old is the point.

Hughes was cautious before York, telling journalists she had "a little squeak" of a chance in the Commonwealth Cup. She went one better at York instead. His yard has sent out 60 winners this season — a busy, productive operation — and Sayidah Dariyan appears to be one of its brightest names right now. She raced just yesterday, is clearly in excellent form, and according to her jockey, she is a horse firmly on the rise. A horse that yawns before races and then wins Class 1s tends not to stay quiet for long.