Watch And Learn: Graeme North timefigure analysis

Unlike the Criterium International or the Criterium de Saint-Cloud, which I’ll cover next Sunday in my North On Sunday French Flat round-up and which will be the last until the turf season starts again in earnest next April, the final Group 1 of the domestic season for juveniles, the Futurity Trophy at Doncaster, sponsored this year by William Hill, has proved an abundant source of Group 1 winners for the following two seasons.

As it should of course if it is to reflect the intentions of the pattern. Indeed, the last ten runnings of the Futurity (since 2015) prior to this year’s renewal were won by six different horses who went on to score again at the highest level in Britain, Ireland or France in the following two seasons – Auguste Rodin, Kameko, Luxembourg, Mac Swiney, Magna Grecia and Saxon Warrior – while two of those that didn’t – Ancient Wisdom and Elm Park – at least went on to win subsequently at either Group 3 or listed level.

That’s a formidable record (since 2015 the Criterium de Saint-Cloud has thrown up just two subsequent Group 1 winners at three or four, albeit good ones in Los Angeles and Waldgeist amongst a whole host of second-raters, while the Criterium International has thrown up just one, the Prix Jean Prat winner Thunder Snow who later went on to win back-to-back editions of the Dubai World Cup) and would seem to me a far better defining measurement of a race’s standing within the international pattern than the end-of-season race ratings currently used that have often looked corrupted by domestic interest and inter-jurisdiction compromise.

Those then are the precedents that Hotazhell has to live up to, so what are the chances that he can follow in the steps of the six and not the four? Well, in terms of pre-race ratings, Hotazhell is one of the lower pre-race achievers despite wins in the Group 3 Tyros Stakes and the Group 2 Beresford Stakes but that said, his level of pre-race form was no worse than either Kameko or Mac Swiney had shown (Marcel is something of an outlier here with his two prior starts having resulted in a win in a lowly maiden at Newcastle).

In terms of the more important actual race achievement, however, mindful that some of the performance ratings achieved by earlier winners will have been pulled down slightly from the level they were judged to have achieved at the time, Hotazhell’s performance rating of 116 is just 4lb below what Saxon Warrior was adjudged to have achieved and 3lb less than both Auguste Rodin and Kameko while surpassing by 1lb or more what four other winners achieved.

On the clock, however, his 116 timefigure has been bettered only in that time twice, by Kameko (118) and Marcel (117) with the latter, should readers not be aware, never seen again after trailing home last in the 2000 Guineas when running as if amiss after six months off.

Those achievements suggest to me that Hotazhell has decent prospects of adding another Group 1 to his record, presumably the Irish 2000, a race Mac Swiney won in 2021, not least given the only winner to have had the third horse further back than Hotazhell did among the ten previous winners was Auguste Rodin in 2022. If the omens are good for Hotazhell, then they are good too for runner-up Delacroix who confirmed his Autumn Stakes effort where he had been one of the few winners at the meeting to race on the stand rail while proving his versatility in the process in this much more strongly-run contest, paying a further compliment to two horses who have strong lines of form with him from earlier in the season, Green Impact, who’d beaten him in the Champions Juvenile at Leopardstown in September, and Hazdann who’d beaten Green Impact at the Curragh in June.

Royal Lodge winner Wimbledon Hawkeye wasn’t disgraced in third after taking a keen hold tackling softer ground than previously which Timeform called heavy but was on the cusp of soft ground given Hotazhell’s winning time was faster than Mac Swiney’s had been four years earlier when the wind was gusting across and not slightly against as it was this year.

In spite of the testing conditions which often play havoc with the returning of timefigures, Doncaster’s Saturday card was in the circumstances a fairly straightforward one. Opening juvenile winner La Bellotta must be a tough cookie given he was contesting his second race since running in the Abbaye less than three weeks previously, not only that but showing marginally improved form too in first-time blinkers under a well-judged front-running ride from Oisin Murphy who was taking over for the first time with his mount returned to a more suitable six-furlong trip, returning a 106 timefigure which is 1lb higher than he posted when second in the Mill Reef.

Five-furlong handicap winner Cover Up had been threatening to win a decent handicap all season and finally put it all together faced with his softest conditions yet, doing well to run down the seemingly home-and-hosed Jer Batt in a career-best 102 timefigure.

James Owen might have had a disappointment with Wimbledon Hawkeye but his Pellitory won the nursery in good fashion in a much-improved 88 timefigure and the rapid manner in which he swept to the front suggests there’s a fair bit more to come now he’s settled down.

The previous day Zoum Zoum, who last November had won a listed race in bad ground at Saint-Cloud, demonstrated once again how well those who have been contesting listed or Group races are treated dropped in grade when confronted with the stronger pace that generally prevails in handicaps, defying an official mark of 101 with a performance seemingly around a stone better than he has managed before, backed up for the most part by a 103 timefigure, while Harper’s Ferry and Fine Interview (both 100) also recorded three figures on the clock.

Pick of the Newbury action

Across at Newbury, their end-of-season juvenile feature, the Horris Hill Stakes, has fared modestly as a future predictor, even at the Group 3 level it currently resides, with only Mohaather of its winner since 2014 going on to score at Group or listed level at three or four, albeit going the extra mile for the race by scoring three times most notably in the Group 1 Sussex Stakes, for all three of the other winners, Light Infantry, Knight and Crazy Horse managed to finish runner-up subsequently in Group 2 or 3 company.

As in the Futurity at Doncaster, the winning distance was the minimum possible, a nose, but given the runner-up Yaroogh had won a listed race on his previous start in similar conditions in France and the third and fourth Star Anthem and Benevento both brought useful form to the table, the form looks a bit more straightforward to process than is sometimes the case for all a strong early gallop led to a slow motion finish and compromised Make You Smile's winning timefigure (90) somewhat with both the stride length and stride frequency of all the horses falling off a cliff in the last two furlongs according to the Total Performance Data on the Attheraces website.

Sectional analysis backs those indicators up while suggesting the runner-up and the third ended up doing too much too soon relative to the winner with the runner-up Yaroogh in particular arguably the best horse in the race by 5lb on that metric.

In contrast the other pattern race on the card, the St Simon Stakes, was a relatively steadily contested affair and despite it being the joint longest race on the card it produced the second fastest final furlong according to the tracking data with the winner Max Vega running it slower only than wide-margin winner and stable-mate That’s Amore managed in the following novice.

That That’s Amore could do that at all on her debut in the second-last race of a two-day meeting on testing ground is testamount to her ability and a conservative estimate of her last three furlong speed (using a weighted average of the last three furlongs) elevates her 89 timefigure to a more significant 99 yet, if using the last furlong in isolation, it could be as high as 104 which is interesting in view of the considerable improvement her full brother Persica has made this year as a three-year-old.

2025 could be even better for Beckett

Over the same trip the previous day, admittedly one not used that often these days but for which the standard times in use at Timeform look solid enough all the same, That’s Amore’s trainer Ralph Beckett scored with another very promising two-year-old in the shape of Centigrade, a son of Too Darn Hot who’d gone down by a short-head to Jonquil at Sandown on his debut but left that form a long way, scoring by five-and-a-half lengths in a 102 timefigure that could arguably have been 5lb or 6lb higher.

Conditions might have been unusually testing for the youngsters, but all the evidence suggests this is a race to follow, the winner undoubtedly a pattern performer in the making like several of his contemporaries at Kimpton Down while his run was also a reminder not to give up on Jonquil who’d overcame trouble to pip him on the post at Sandown or forget about Tycoon who’d finished a highly promising third in that race staying on from a long way back.

Indeed, Beckett’s two-year-old strength in depth this season, which potentially bodes very well for 2025, suggests he’s better ammunition going forward than some more traditional ‘big name’ stables. Along with Charlie Appleby, he has eight different youngsters in his yard who have run to a Timeform performance rating of 100 or higher this season in Britain, Ireland or France (Aidan O’Brien leads the pack by a country mile with 24) which is two more than Andrew Balding and three more than Karl Burke who are the only other trainers with more four.

In comparison, five years ago in 2019, Beckett had just three at the same stage of the campaign, fewer than all of Aidan O’Brien (21), Charlie Appleby (seven), Richard Hannon (six), Roger Varian (five) and Mark Johnston, Jessica Harrington, Richard Fahey and Saeed bin Suroor (four apiece). She might now be retired but Bluestocking’s Arc success can only accelerate the quality of recruit that comes Beckett’s way too.

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