Watch And Learn: Graeme North timefigure analysis

There was enough material in last week’s events over jumps, domestically at least, to have kept any pioneering equine satirical podcast busy for several episodes. Tiny fields, farcical races, excuses and denials galore, a racecourse ‘gallop’ that wasn’t apparently what it seemed - until later in the week it turned out it was – on top of fines and bans dished out while others got off scot-free for the same if worse, another walkover and more updates about Constitution Hill than you could shake a going stick at – that was the week that was.

Last Monday Plumpton ‘attracted’ just 23 runners for their card, the second-lowest turnout since 2015 on the same afternoon that Exeter, a course no stranger to low turnouts back in the day when it was called Devon and Exeter, had their third lowest turnout in the same period with just 27 runners, just two fewer than Catterick managed four days later (lowest turnout since 2015) when trainers were told they were free to withdraw their horses after a horse slipped up in the opening race.

Tuesday saw two farces, one at Lingfield Park, where the opening apprentice handicap was won by 22 lengths in a timefigure Timeform returned as -46 after the four ‘chasing’ runners let the winner slip the field yet without obviously realising they were all travelling at very slow speeds themselves, leading to some embarrassing bluster from the jockey coaches, and the other at Newbury where Constitution Hill couldn’t keep up with stablemate Sir Gino in a televised gallop only for Nicky Henderson to tie himself in knots afterwards arguing that we hadn’t seen what we thought we had seen despite the ante-post markets suggesting otherwise.

Wednesday saw another reminder that the Irish point-to-pointing scene isn’t always the hotbed of talent it’s largely believed to after Buckna, a horse who had somehow changed hands for £350,000 despite winning his four-year-old maiden in a time eight seconds slower than the winner of the following five-year-old maiden (a horse who himself hadn’t finished any better than fourth in his previous five races) got turned over in a soft race at Ffos Las.

Out came the news on Friday that Constitution Hill had a ‘mysterious lameness’ that hadn’t been apparent after the Newbury gallop but had shown up instead in the ante-post markets for the Fighting Fifth for which Sir Gino was a now a strong favourite despite his trainer's assertions a week earlier that he was going novice chasing.

In yet another update, Henderson maintained that no decision had been taken with Sir Gino only then to reveal that Iberico Lord was going to Kempton, suggesting Sir Gino wasn’t and lo and behold once the declarations for Saturday morning came out Sir Gino was nowhere to be seen with Henderson declaring in yet another update that the way forward for Sir Gino was now clear if it wasn’t yet for Constitution Hill about whom we shall no doubt hear plenty more about over the next few weeks. Thank goodness for some proper racing at the weekend.

Ascot in November is usually a good place to start tracking the Venetia Williams stable and she signalled her intentions for the weekend while taking her track record to a remarkable 50% since the start of the 2023-4 jumps season with a win for eight-year-old Gerimande.

A dictating front-running ride which saw Charlie Deutsch keep enough in reserve to run the fastest time from the last fence of all the winners over fences on the day suggested the issues that kept him off the course for all bar three races last season are behind him, but the time was a relatively modest 109 and given how tightly he railed he surely had a positional advantage unlike several of his rivals who were kept very wide.

With that in mind, I’d still be keeping third-placed Terresita onside. A winner of three of her last six races over fences, which would have been four had she not fallen at Sandown in April, she steered a very wide course which took its toll after the final fence when, after making up good ground from some way back, she was run out of second place.

A reappearance win over Galia Des Liteaux reads well whatever you think of the runner-up’s capabilities at two-and-a-half miles, and I doubt her current mark – down 1lb after this to 134 – is beyond her. Given the £3,000 schooling fine dished out to trainer Evan Williams and 14-day ban handed down to jockey Adam Wedge for the running and riding of Klic Boum at Warwick on Thursday, it was surprisingt that that the stewards didn’t enquire into the riding of third-placed Prophesea in the opening maiden hurdle at Chepstow on Friday.

The rider reported the horse jumped left throughout and hung left in the straight, but given he ran the final circuit around six lengths faster than the winner despite somehow managing to lose three lengths on the winner between three out and two out then given a bit more encouragement he really ought to have won readily. The form is undoubtedly modest, but he started third favourite in the decent maiden won by The New Lion at the track in October and is clearly up to winning races.

The rain that some courses have been holding out for weeks finally came at Haydock Park on Saturday and, not unusually when it falls steadily through the afternoon and turns heavier towards the end of the card, it made timefigure analysis something of a demanding process.

By the time the feature Betfair Chase came to be run at 15.05, conditions had deteriorated noticeably, and it was hardly surprising that the winning time was the slowest by some way since Betfair assumed sponsorship and the race was run over its current distance, around five seconds slower than Bristol de Mai in 2020 and nearly 25 seconds slower than his own winning time in 2023.

What now for Grey Dawning?

A 97% finishing speed in heavy ground compared to 103.9% in 2023 is testament to the demanding nature of the finish, and time will only tell what that effect that might have further down the season, not least of all for runner-up Grey Dawning, who of all the runners beforehand looked the most likely - and might still be - a Gold Cup candidate. Trelawne posted the second-best figure of the meeting, 134, in the graduation chase won so stylishly by Grey Dawning last year but he would probably have been overhauled had runner-up Iroko not been given so much to do as the race developed towards a relatively rapid 110.6% finishing speed.

Down at Ascot the best timefigure on the card was posted in the inaugural Berkshire National, though that 150 comes with some strong caveats attached given the race was contested over a new distance for the track (though there was a race over 3m6f back in 2007) and the resultant standard is something of educated estimate for now. What the need for yet another county ‘National’ is I’m not sure, particularly one as well-endowed as this one was given the pool of quality horses that excel over marathon trips is necessarily shallow, but Beauport, who won the Midlands Grand National last season for all that form worked out badly, could do little more than demolish his field by what used to be known as ‘a distance’ conceding weight to inferiors under a 7lb claimer.

In my experience, official handicappers tend to overreact greatly when assessing winning margins of this degree, and there’s no way he’s in the top echelon of chasers as his new official rating of 156 would suggest, just 9lb lower than the 165 currently held by Grey Dawning. Still, I don’t think connections will mind too much given the £39,000 winning prize money. The other two chases went to Martator in 134 and Pic D’Orhy in 124 and there was little redeeming over hurdles either with the Grade 2 feature, the Howden Ascot Hurdle, going to Lucky Place in a 92 timefigure 20lb lower than the best of the card posted by Scarlet O’Tara in the long-distance handicap.

Bright start from Ballyburn

Across at Punchestown, all eyes were not on either the Morgiana Hurdle or even the Florida Pearl as they might have been in previous years, not least given Gordon Elliott saddled all three runners in the latter, all of which were also in the same ownership, but on this year’s Gallagher winner Ballyburn who made his chasing debut in a beginners chase that had been won in recent years by Gaelic Warrior, Kilcruit, Asterion Forlonge and Faugheen.

Ballyburn wasn’t as spectacularly impressive as Gaelic Warrior had been, and nothing other than Dee Capo was keen to lay too close to him, but he exhibited a powerfully efficient swagger on his way to an easily achieved 148 timefigure that suggests he’ll reach the same heights over fences as a novice that he did hurdles. Dee Capo, the best of his opponents over hurdles, possibly paid late for running second as his jumping went to bits but behind them both Release The Beast, whose trainer Paul Nolan surely deserves better support, and Ataboycharlie both made significant inroads on the winner before the second last having been waited with, particularly the former who ran the penultimate quarter mile by far the quickest, and looks set to win their fair share of chases.

The Florida Pearl was something of a non event, Albert Bartlett winner Stellar Story narrowly getting the better of what was more akin to a behind closed doors kickabout in a race that wasn’t run fast enough to produce a timefigure, while the Morgiana too looks something of a misleading result to me too (winning timefigure just 133) with none of those behind the first two it seemed running their race for various reasons.

Maybe State Man didn’t either, unable to peg back one with race fitness on her side for all he had won this race first time out for the last two seasons, but given Brighterdaysahead had looked limited at Cheltenham on her last start at two miles in the Mares’ Hurdle I can’t help but think this isn’t top class Grade One two-mile form.

Willie Mullins remarked that Sunday’s Grade One John Durkan Memorial was possibly the best renewal he could remember, and it didn’t disappoint with just half a length between two of last year’s leading novices Fact To File and Spillane’s Tower at the end of a strongly-run race that saw the winner post a 167 timefigure, which is the second highest in the race behind Sizing John (168) in 2017 and on a par with the figure Galopin Des Champs recorded in 2022.

Galopin Des Champs, who was third in a steadily-run renewal of this race in 2023 behind Fastorslow before going on to win his next three races, including of course the Gold Cup, ran a better reappearance this time around (164 timefigure) and arguably played his part in teeing things up for the first two who were produced from off the gallop, deserving of greater credit as I saw than Fastorslow who like the first two was ridden further back but couldn’t stay with the principals after the last.

Inothewayurthinkin, a horse about who I wrote a couple of weeks ago I was looking very much to seeing this season, can reasonably have this run overlooked given he was very weak in the market and was reappearing at a trip well short of his best.

Touch Me Not looked the latest in a series of high-class two-mile novices when winning the Grade 2 Craddockstown in a 143 timefigure, jumping like the proverbial stag out in front and leaving his reappearance form when second to Fascile Mode a long way behind.

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