The G1 Yorkshire Oaks over 2371m of York’s historic Knavesmire turf has been won by the red hot favourite in each of the past five years, but this Thursday’s contest is another story.

There will be a favourite of course and it will surely be the remarkable five-year-old grey mare Alpinista, a daughter of the brilliant Frankel with the pedigree on her distaff side correctly predicting she would get better as she got older.

She spends most of her time in Heath House Stables in Newmarket but she has made her name when travelling to Europe. In her last four starts she has won three G1’s in  Germany and then – when few appeared to expect it after a 238-day absence – she surged past rival after rival to win July’s G1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud. Owner Kirsten Rausing says of that Paris memory: “She showed a change of gear that day that she had never quite shown us before.”

Alpinista is trained by Sir Mark Prescott who in more than 50 years in the business has never won a British Classic race. Whilst he always describes that lapse to be one of his biggest disappointments it is equally surprising to everyone else in the racing world who have long been in awe of his expertise, especially with horses rising in trip.

Jockey Luke Morris has an unconventional style but on many mounts – including Alpinista – his technique could not work better. And he is clearly anticipating a demonstration of the expanding talents of Alpinista – who finished second in the 2020 Yorkshire Oaks as a huge priced outsider – to a domestic audience on Thursday.

Morris says: “People have knocked her form in the past so hopefully she can now show how good she is. And I am very lucky in that she is tactically very versatile. She’s won from the front, been ridden close to the speed, and we challenged late at Saint-Cloud.”

But Alpinista has to concede 9lb to the three-year-old generation who have won this contest – first run in 1849 – in seven of the last eight years.

Tuesday (Ryan Moore) gained a thrilling victory in the Oaks (2405m) at Epsom in June and Magical Lagoon (Shane Foley) won the Irish version (2400m) at The Curragh the following month. These Classic winners will be joined by another upwardly mobile three-year-old who thrives at this trip in the shape of Raclette (Olivier Peslier). Trained by French maestro Andre Fabre she showed courage to win Longchamp’s G2 Prix de Malleret (2400m) last month.

Alpinista will also have to fend off two very smart four-year-old fillies in Lilac Road and La Petite Coco. Lilac Road (Tom Marquand) is the race’s only past York winner (May’s G2 Middleton Stakes 2051m) at a course which is famously a ‘specialists’ track whilst La Petite Coco (Billy Lee) comes from the Irish stable of Paddy Twomey who have been in unstoppable form of late. This has been La Petite Coco’s target since she gained her fourth consecutive victory in the G1 Pretty Polly Stakes (2000m) at The Curragh in June. And if rain arrives in York her chance would be further enhanced.