Mike Vince remembers his favourite renewals of the Beverley Bullet ahead of the ITV cameras capturing the 2021 renewal this weekend.
Variety, they say, is the spice of life - racing is proof of that, and very few tracks would say all their flagship races are over the same trip.
But Beverley, that wonderfully welcoming haunt on the Westwood, above the minster town in East Yorkshire, is different.
For years their season had been dominated by their two five furlong two-year-old races which have become key Royal Ascot trials, but in 2004 the course - whose imagination has no bounds as the running of the Donkey Derby and the B’Arc de Triomphe - came up with a big hit.
The uphill five-furlong track, where for years the draw had been decisive, has been treated and so was born the Beverley Bullet, a sprint that has grown in reputation ever since - and this Saturday sees the ITV Cameras in town to show it.
And you can understand why - its fiercely competitive for a big prize - and Yorkshire has always housed a multitude of great sprinters.
12 months ago Dakota Gold, who went on to win this year's Unibet Stewards Cup at Goodwood, triumphed for Michael Dods and Connor Beasley with Last Empire and Keep Busy second and third.
But in the preceding years it has been the performance of some wonderful veterans that has almost lifted the roof off the stands.
In 2012 Borderlescott rolled the years back to win the Bullet at the age of 10, a feat equalled by the David Griffiths-trained speedball Take Cover in 2017, but he went one better - sealing a spectacular encore at the amazing age of 11 twelve months later.
Arguably the most memorable Bullet of all, though, came in 2016 - one of the great blanket finishes which took the judge an age to place in a multiple photo.
Victory that afternoon went to Connor Beasley on Alpha Delphini, who had won a Maiden on the card a year earlier, and went on to land the Coolmore Nunthorpe two years later in another desperate finish.
Alpha Dephini beat Willy the Conqueror, Muthmir, Final Venture and Mr Lupton in a five-way photo - for which the distances were a neck, short head, nose and half a length - one of the most exciting races ever staged at The Westwood.
The 2021 renewal on Saturday has some record to follow.
