Hindsight is a wonderful thing in racing. With it in my mind, having watched Never So Brave run down the leader in the Group 2 Summer Mile at Ascot on Saturday afternoon, it was obvious that the form from the Buckingham Palace Stakes at the Royal Meeting was incredibly strong and as such, Holguin should probably have been a much shorter price than 13/2 for this Listed contest. Drawn widest of all in stall 8, he was initially driven into position behind the leaders by Faleh Bughenaim, running the fastest 2nd furlong in the contest in 11.27s. That gave him the ideal position to wait for the pace to lift and when asked for his effort, he has responded generously to run the fastest final 2-furlongs in the field to run down the long time leader in the final strides. A top speed of 41.96 mph and a run-out speed of 38.92 mph both ranked 1st and at a peak average stride frequency of 2.4 per second, he showed the best turn-of-foot in the 8 strong field to get himself to the front. He won this race as a 3-year-old back in 2023, but this was a close to a career best effort and although the quick ground helped, a winning time of 1:23.69 was the fastest winning time in this race since 2008. Given the fact that the race had a finishing speed of 107%, that’s quite a remarkable statistic and the fact that Holguin was able to make up several lengths in the straight only adds to the strength of this performance. He holds an entry in the International Handicap at Ascot in 10-days time, but the handicapper has given him a 10 lb rise to a mark of 110, which will make that a difficult task and his connections may prefer to wait for the Lennox at Glorious Goodwood. Either way, this was a very strong performance and it will be no surprise to see him add further pattern success to his CV later in the season.