Our man at the track with his take on Item's dramatic win in the Juddmonte International at York.
You’d have thought we’d have learned by now.
We billed the Juddmonte International as a titanic head-to-head between Ombudsman and Constitution River. The old champion against the emerging force.
In one corner, on Timeform ratings, the king was coming into the Group One rated only below Frankel and Sea The Stars in terms of the modern-day runners. The young pretender needed to find five pounds to even match him, produce the sort of career-defining performance City Of Troy mustered over the same ten furlongs when fending off Calandagan two short years ago.
And we did have a thrilling head-to-head, a pulsating finish, in which an improving three-year-old beat a Group One-winning elder.
But it was Item overhauling Almaqam in a finish of the ages.
