Whether the 1stsecuritysolutions.co.uk Feilden Stakes will unearth another Golden Horn is unlikely, but a classy field of four is set to go to post at Newmarket on Tuesday - headed by John Gosden's exciting colt Tathqeef.
This time last year, very little was known about the future Derby, Eclipse and Arc hero as he had only won a Nottingham maiden by a head.
The rest, as they say, is history, and it could be seen by many as informative that Gosden has chosen this as the starting point for Hamdan Al Maktoum's unknown quantity, who did everything wrong in a Wolverhampton maiden in October before running out a ready winner.
"Hopefully he's as good as he looked," said the owner's racing manager Angus Gold.
"It was only an all-weather maiden, we must remember, but he did do everything wrong.
"He's scopey, so you'd expect him to be better this year.
"By running him here we expect to find out where he fits in. It's a good time of year, and at this stage we don't know what we've got.
"Being by Tapit, he'd want top of the ground, you'd think, and he certainly wouldn't want any rain."
The leading owner also runs Mustajeer, trained by Owen Burrows, who has taken over Barry Hills' licence in Lambourn.
A Newmarket maiden winner last season, he also looks promising and will be ridden by Dane O'Neill.
"It will be interesting to see how he performs as quite a lot of people are telling us they are very pleased with this horse," said Gold.
"Basically, we simply don't know how good he is.
"I thought he did well to win his maiden and his last 100 yards were very impressive.
"It might have looked as if he had a high head carriage but he did have to fight so he's not ungenuine.
"If either of them are half as good as Golden Horn we'll be delighted, but this looked the right race for both of them."
Hugo Palmer thought enough of Mengli Khan last year to run him in Group One company but he failed to replicate the form of his Nottingham maiden win and trailed in last of the seven runners.
"He was always going to be a three-year-old as he's a lovely big horse and he's wintered particularly well," said Palmer.
"He's a lightly-raced, young horse and we'll learn a lot. I've been pleased with his work at home.
"You could make a case for any of the runners. They all have claims, but that is exactly what trials are for - to sort out the pecking order.
"In the Racing Post Trophy the ground was against him and Newmarket would be much more his track."
Richard Hannon's Ventura Storm completes the quartet and was beaten just five lengths in a Group One in France last season.
Owned by Middleham Park Racing, their racing manager Tim Palin said: "It's a very tight race and our form is there for all to see.
"We think the step up in trip should bring out improvement and if the rain came, that might suit us more than the others.
"We're hoping he's a Group horse as he's in the Dante, the German Guineas and the Italian Derby."
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