Although it appears that Hukum has come out of nowhere and hit the top-level this season, a re-examination of his career record leads you to realise that trainer Owen Burrows has carefully plotted his stable star’s rise to the top over a number of years.

There have been numerous impressive training feats since Hukum's career began as a juvenile in 2019. Hukum won his seasonal reappearance at three – worth mentioning, seeing as it was in the King George V Handicap at Royal Ascot – and actually finished fifth in the St Leger behind Galileo Chrome.

The son of Sea The Stars was kept busy during his four-year-old campaign, winning the 1m4f Listed Tapner Stakes, the 1m6f Group 3 Silver Cup Stakes and the 1m5½f Geoffrey Freer Stakes before ending the year with a return to Ascot.

He boasts an excellent record over twelve furlongs at Ascot (3-4) and was an impressive six-and-a-half length winner of the Group 3 Cumberland Lodge Stakes in October 2021.

Hukum still remained un-raced at Group 1 level entering his fifth year, but was sent to Meydan for a tilt at the Sheema Classic.

He won the trial Group 2 City Of Gold and shaped better than the bare result would suggest in the Group 1 itself, finishing only one-and-three-quarter lengths back in seventh.

The five-year-old returned to the UK for the Group 1 Coronation Cup at Epsom, where he easily beat old rival Pyledriver by four-and-a-quarter lengths before picking up an injury.

It must have been a difficult pill to swallow for Owen Burrows, who had finally achieved his Group 1 goal with the horse.

"I think it's pretty obvious to see with his form this year that he is better than ever, it looked last season like he was on the up when he won the Coronation Cup at Epsom," he said.

"Unfortunately he picked up his injury there, which stopped his season, but from an early stage this year when we started working him again, he showed all his old enthusiasm and his work was better than ever".

Hukum was off the track for nearly a year and returned with a surprise victory in the Group 3 Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown Park, defeating the 2022 Derby hero Desert Crown.

His win earnt him a place as one of the leading contenders for the King George at Ascot, which was touted to be one of the races of the season where the younger generation (Auguste Rodin and King Of Steel) would go head to head with the older horses (Hukum and Emily Upjohn).

In the race, some of the main protagonists failed to fire and it was Hukum who drew clear of the field with Westover, battling stride-for-stride with Hukum finishing in front by a head.

Although Hukum has only reached the racetrack twice this season, a gap between races does not appear to be a problem for the six-year-old.

"I'm more than happy to bring him in off the back of his King George win, he's proven as he won first time in Dubai last year on Super Saturday," Burrows added.

"He won the Brigadier Gerard and then we weren't able to run at Royal Ascot as the ground was a bit quick, so he went to the King George after a bit of a break.

"He's obviously a horse who runs well fresh and we're confident we can get him there in a good spot.

"We've been very pleased with him, obviously that [the King George] was at the end of July so he's had a nice easy couple of weeks after that," the trainer said.

"We've had a nice amount of time to slowly bring him up for this very important race now."