Watch And Learn: Graeme North timefigure analysis

Billed - deservedly or otherwise - as the highest-profile end of season fixture in British Flat racing, QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot is less controversially the most valuably endowed with none of the five Group races worth less than a quarter of a million pounds and even the winner of the Balmoral Handicap pocketing £103,080, the second most valuable handicap run at Ascot in the calendar year after, not as might be imagined any of those run at Royal Ascot, but the Challenge Cup at the first October meeting.

Whether it has fully fulfilled the remit under which it was created - to identify divisional champions by combining a number of important races at Newmarket’s and Ascot’s end-of-year fixtures - isn’t a question for this column but a late switch for the second year in succession (and the third time in six years) onto the tighter inner track for the round course races because of heavy rainfall wasn’t met, understandably, with widespread approval.

Conditions at Ascot were certainly testing, as we can see from the winning times of those races run on the straight track since the meeting was initiated in 2011. The winning time for the Sprint was the second slowest during that period after Gordon Lord Byron in 2014; the Queen Elizabeth II was the third slowest after Charm Spirit in 2014 and Persuasive in 2017, both of whom carried 5lb less than the 2024 winner Charyn, while the Balmoral was the second slowest renewal after The Gatekeeper in 2023.

Data is much less comprehensive for those races contested on the inner track, naturally, but the winning time in the Long Distance Cup was the second slowest of the three inner track renewals while the Champion Stakes and the Fillies and Mares were both the slowest.

Champions Day kicked off as it usually does with the Long Distance Cup and if the day was graced by an undisputed champion (though connection of top older miler Charyn might disagree, given he has shown a higher level of form this year) it was in this race which went to the outstanding stayer Kyprios who was oddly winning it for the first time having been beaten in it in an injury-delayed 2023 season by Trawlerman who’d won that renewal by a neck but finished almost four lengths behind his old rival here in third place, the pair split by the remote 2023-third Sweet William.

Indeed, the 2023 and 2024 editions could hardly have panned out any more differently. Last year, Trawlerman was allowed to establish a long lead before Kyprios started to cut the deficit but in doing so effectively cut his own throat, running the sixth-last furlong according to the TPD data 0.41 seconds (two lengths) faster than Trawlerman, the fifth-last 0.72 (over three lengths) seconds faster, the fourth-last 0.70 seconds faster and the third-last 0.20 seconds faster before the more efficiently-paced Trawlerman ran each of the last two slightly quicker.

Whether the agonising nature of that defeat convinced connections to ride Kyprios closer to the pace this year I’m not sure, but the latest Long Distance Cup ended up being run in typical 2024 Kyprios fashion, close up then never looking in any danger once sent for home with Trawlerman finishing third on this occasion having been off since the Gold Cup.

Missed opportunity with staying king?

A 109 timefigure is the same as Kyprios achieved in the Gold Cup (when Trawlerman was second) if some way below his career bests of 120 in this year’s Goodwood Cup and 118 in the 2022 Irish St Leger, but for the second time in three years he has gone through a season unbeaten, winning all six of his races in 2022 and all seven this year which can’t be said for Charyn. What a shame he wasn’t given the opportunity to see what he could have achieved in the Arc, in which he would have been Timeform’s top-rated horse by several pounds at weight-adjusted ratings.

20 runners went to post in the Sprint and if any race on the card looked ripe again for an upset it was this one which four times since 2011 has been won by a horse priced 16/1 or bigger. The horse who caused the biggest upset in that time, Art Power, who scored at 40/1 in 2023, was in the field again and as he did in 2023 helped force the pace, in doing so bringing those who were drawn high across towards the far side.

Art Power isn’t as good as he was in 2023, hardly surprising given he’s seven now, and began to flag not long after halfway leaving the eventual winner Kind Of Blue, the eventual runner-up Swingalong and 12th home Audience in the front three positions.

Audience, better over further and on faster ground, soon dropped away but the other two were quickly joined by Flora Of Bermuda who’d waltzed up at Goodwood the only time she’d encountered soft ground before and the French challenger Beauvatier who ran the fastest penultimate furlong according to the TPD data.

He couldn’t raise his effort again in the last furlong, however, so reaching the frame yet again in a Group One, allowing Kind Of Blue to hold by a head with Flora of Bermuda finishing a neck behind Swingalong in third. It’s not unusual to see the top sprinters taking turns in beating each other given the fine-margin specifics of pace and conditions that play out in races over five and six furlongs but Kind Of Blue is not typical of the usual Champions Sprint winner.

Most of the 13 winners who preceded him in the race since it has been run at Ascot had plenty of experience yet the Champions Sprint was just Kind Of Blue’s seventh race, three less than any previous winner had had, and given how plenty in his family have progressed, including The Tin Man and Deacon Blues, both of whom also won this race, he looks set for plenty more Group One wins given the opportunity. A 115 timefigure was a career best, elevated to 123 after an 8lb sectional upgrade is included.

Kalpana can go higher in 2025

If not a lot got into the Sprint from off the pace - Montassib fared best of those (fastest final furlong according to the tracking data) with Kinross getting going too late - even less managed it in the Fillies & mares which went comprehensively to Kalpana. The winner had shown narrowly the best form beforehand and had run a 111 timefigure when runner-up in the Pretty Polly Stakes back in May but she’d shown her versatility when landing the steadily-run Group Three September Stakes (timefigure 66) on Kempton’s all-weather last time yet left even that form behind to beat Wingspan, a daughter of a previous winner of the race in Hydrangea, by two lengths with another three lengths back to the rest.

Her final three furlongs were easily the fastest of any horse on the round course all day, 0.72 seconds faster than Kyprios and 0.95 seconds faster than Anmaat, at the end of a steadily-run race in which her timefigure was only a very ordinary 78. She’s been remarkably progressive and looks to me like she might rate higher next year.

Since Frankel won the first Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Champions Day at Ascot in 2011 - by four lengths from Excelebration, which remained the largest winning margin until it was eclipsed by Big Rock’s six-length win last year - the race has been won another nine times by a horse starting shorter than 6/1 in the betting.

Only three horses fulfilled that condition in 2024 – Charyn, Facteur Cheval and Tamfana – and they duly finished first, second and third albeit not quite in betting order with third-favourite Facteur Cheval being the one who ended up giving Charyn most to do.

Was Charyn also Champion in waiting?

The race was redemption for Charyn after his second place behind the enterprisingly-ridden Tribalist at Longchamp last time in the Prix du Moulin when he was set far too much to do like all the others behind the winner that day and his regular rider Silvestre de Sousa made sure there would be no repeat by keeping his mount in much closer touch with the leaders this time.

The pace was strong – the winning timefigure was 121, just 1lb inferior to that he’d recorded in the Queen Anne over the same course and distance back in June, and was the second fastest since its transfer to Ascot behind Big Rock’s 131 in 2023 - which found out many on the ground yet Charyn was still on the bridle over two furlongs out before knuckling down well.

His task might have been made easier by the absence of the top three-year-old milers, but such was his relentless gallop out that it’s hard to imagine he would have beaten by any of them. The Mile Championship in Japan has been suggested as a late-year target which would be an ambitious target for sure but it strikes me similar sentiments apply to him as they do to Kyprios; it would have been interesting to see him tried at a different trip and given he’s such a powerful stayer at a mile, what might he have achieved had he run in the Champion Stakes instead?

Quelle pagaille! as the French might say. In all fairness, neither the connections of Calandagan nor Iresine made much of the troubled runs they encountered in the Champions Stakes in the short home straight, though Iresine’s rider Marie Velon felt she would have been third with a clearer run which seemed to me something of an understatement.

Plenty might have been written about the race but I’m not sure the result needs much unpicking – once out in the clear, Calandagan came to win his race but got outspeeded by a horse who only last year had the speed to win the Group One Prix d’Ispahan over nine furlongs and probably needed his recent spin in the Prix Dollar on Arc weekend.

Anmaat didn't improve to win the feature

That’s not to say Anmaat, whose winning performance was worth 115 on the clock, 4lb inferior to his 119 best, is the better horse. Even after taking the trouble he himself found in running, the level of form he showed wasn’t any better than he had shown at his peak – 125 in the 2022 Rose Of Lancaster at Haydock – and I remain convinced that Calandagan’s effort in the International at York - rated 129 by Timeform – is still the best performance I’ve seen all season.

Ascot’s short straight hadn’t caused Calandagan any problems in the King Edward VII at the Royal meeting but he was head and shoulders the best at the end of that mile-and-a-half race run at a searching gallop yet has shown better form since despite being faced with an increasingly insufficient tests of stamina.

How the result would have panned out had Iresine, another gelding, had anything like a clear run is hard to gauge but there’s every chance he would have beaten Calandagan on the day, remarkable that he has such a turn of foot for one who won the French St Leger a couple of years back. Iresine revels in soft ground, so the King George next summer is probably out for him, but the French already look to have a tight grip on the race with Calandagan (who will be ridden next year by Mickael Barzalona) and Goliath. What a clash that would be!

Away from Ascot there was some good action at Leopardstown’s two-day meeting with pride of place on the clock going to Norwalk Havoc who had finished second in a large-field handicap at the Galway Festival before finishing first in his group in the draw-riddled Cambridgeshire yet improved even further on those efforts in the listed Knockaire Stakes, recording a 113 timefigure.

The two Group races for juveniles, the Eyrefield Stakes and the Killavullen Stakes, went to Sigh No More and Exactly in timefigures of 98 and 102 respectively, while pattern races will surely be on the agenda sooner or later for a youngster, Convergent, who made a winning debut for Karl Burke at Redcar on Friday, taking some time to find his stride but winning going away in a 90 timefigure which is a very high level for the track.

Previous Watch And Learn Column

Shadow didn't prove himself on clock

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