Watch and Learn: Timefigure analysis from Graham North

There wasn’t a lot happening domestically last week, so I’ll concentrate on the action from Ireland where the first pattern event took place at Leopardstown on Thursday night and saw Diego Velazguez return to winning ways in the Group 3 Meld Stakes.

On the face of things this was a very smart performance commensurate with the promise he’d shown not only in his first two races at two years but also in the French 2000 on his reappearance, and a 116 timefigure might be cited as further ‘evidence’ his performance was pretty much as good as it looked. There’s no doubt that Diego Velazguez was the best horse in the race and would surely have won handsomely anyway had he taken the path followed by most of the others but right from the start Ryan Moore was notably keen to keep him wide of the more churned up ground on the inside some earlier winners had taken despite the much longer route he was taking.

Chris Hayes on eventual runner-up Tarawa got the message swinging wide off the home turn that the inside rail might not be the place to be, bizarrely given he’d come wide when winning an earlier race, but all that did was force Diego Velazguez wider onto what looked an even faster strip he had to himself. A literal reading of his seven-length win has all those behind the winner running a long way below form which is usually an indication in itself something is afoot and had I the ability to return timefigures with symbols attached to them, such as those that accompany Timeform ratings, I’d have probably elected for 116? In this instance.

What did new Derby favourite achieve?

Later in the week the two-day meeting at the Curragh staged a decent amount of good quality racing and thrown in for good measure was a maiden that saw its winner, The Lion In Winter, catapulted to the head of the betting for the 2025 Derby.

Not that that outcome would necessarily have been expected beforehand given his stablemate Ides Of March was one of two rivals who started a much shorter price but The Lion In Winter clearly had their measure approaching the last furlong and he ended up running the last furlong according to the Course Track sectionals in 11.74 seconds which was faster than all the other winners except for Believing (11.73) and Tower Of London (a remarkable 11.15) despite coming under little more than hand riding.

Timeform’s upgrades gave The Lion In Winter a 7lb upgrade from three furlongs out, so making his overall timerating 96 on the back of a raw 89 timefigure, but as I’ve written plenty of times before, upgrades where performances develop well after the sectional point undercook the upgrades quite considerably and I’d suggest his upgrade weighted more towards that last furlong is more like 12lb.

Worthy winner of the feature?

An interesting start to Oaks Day, then, with the feature event attracting the biggest field since Snow Fairy beat 14 rivals in 2010. Moore was the man on board that day and the market was clearly expecting a repeat given the heavy support that saw his mount Content backed into favouritism despite the presence in the field of her stable-companion Port Fairy who the jockey had ridden to victory in the Ribblesdale Stakes last time out.

Port Fairy might have finished ahead of the re-opposing Lava Stream and You Got To Me in the Ribblesdale but You Got To Me had cut out some intense donkey work that day before finishing fourth (got a bigger upgrade than the three ahead of her as a result, as she had in the Oaks at Epsom) and it was probably to her advantage that a bump leaving the stalls meant she wasn’t able to take the prominent position her rider Hector Crouch had clearly intended judging by his post-race comments.

I suspect Content, who like some others found trouble in the straight, was very unlucky, however. Timeform’s sectionals give them both a 6lb upgrade, taking their overall timeratings to 106 and 105 respectively, but upgrades don’t take into account trouble in running and using the same methodology as for The Lion In Winter, an upgrade weighted more heavily towards the last furlong which Course Track has her running in 11.62 as opposed to You Got To Me’s 12.09 suggests she’s arguably the better filly by 4lb or 5lb.

'Extraordinary' run to win the Cup

The two other pattern races on the card, the Group 2 Sapphire Stakes and the Curragh Cup, went to Believing and Tower Of London in timefigures of 113 and 91 respectively.

The former race was run a decent clip with the field soon well strung out and featured a very eye-catching run from fourth-placed Jakajaro. Out the back after getting interfered with at the start, he was detached by a couple of lengths at least at halfway but made rapid progress into third place entering the final furlong only to lose a place close home.

Tower Of London won an extraordinary Curragh Cup a shade cosily in the end not that outcome looked likely turning into the straight. Even passing the two-furlong pole he was more than two and a half seconds (14 lengths) behind his stable-companion Grosvenor Square who’d stolen a march after half a mile or so, but he reduced the defect rapidly in the last furlong (see his finishing split above) and was going away quickly at the line.

Using Course Track sectionals, Grosvenor’s Square’s finishing speed at 100.2% suggesting he hadn’t overdone things madly in front; in comparison, Tower Of London’s finishing speed was 113%!

Sunday’s Curragh Card wasn’t quite so interesting but the Anglesey Stakes that kicked the trio of Group Races off was notable for the misplaced strength in the market for Cowardofthecounty who’d looked to find six furlongs in the Coventry much too short yet was persevered with at the trip.

Perhaps his strength in the betting was influenced by what Whistlejacket had achieved in the July Stakes but his defeat here, outpaced from the word go, was a reminder once again that form is contextual and not always transferable. Some late headway suggests he’s not a lost cause when he gets longer distances, more likely a mile than seven furlongs, but it was the fillies who held sway by filling two of the first three places with Babouche following up her debut win gamely in a 97 timefigure for all runner-up Camille Pissarro emerges best albeit narrowly when upgrades are factored in.

British raider Poet Master blew apart what looked quite a tightly-contested Minstrel Stakes by three-and-a-half lengths, more than confirming what I wrote about him after his Newmarket Craven Meeting that if any horse on show at the meeting was potentially a Group 1 horse it was him, advancing his form by near on 10lb even if his winning timefigure was a relatively ordinary 98.

Another British challenger Royal Dress won the other pattern event, the Meadow Court Stakes, in a decent 106 timefigure so supplementing her Goodwood Listed win back in May for all she had been well held in the Duke Of Cambridge Stakes at Ascot last time.

City Of York ideal test for Lake Forest?

Across at Newbury, Elite Status scored his second successive win over Newbury’s six furlongs by taking the Hackwood Stakes from the fast-finishing Commonwealth Cup runner-up Lake Forest in a 112 timefigure which is a small improvement on his listed Carnarvon win earlier in the season.

I wonder whether the Sky Bet City of York Stakes at the Ebor meeting is the ideal target for the runner-up. He won the Gimcrack at the same meeting last year, ended up being the meat in the sandwich leaving the stalls in the Commonwealth putting him on the back foot even before he suffered late interference, and was too far off the pace at Newbury before finishing strongly. He’ll stay York’s easy seven furlongs standing on his head and will likely improve a bit more for the trip.

The Weatherbys Super Sprint looked a deeper renewal than several in recent seasons and produced an above-average if unlikely-looking winner in Caburn (timefigure 96) who was going nowhere for a long way only to get up in the last strides with fellow debut six-furlong winner Time For Sandals back in third place. Runner-up Vingegaard, fifth in the Windsor Castle last time, deserves some extra credit (some 2lb or so) given he was in the firing line throughout and can fairly be called the moral winner.

Changing times in the north

The aforementioned Poet Master was Karl Burke’s second Group winner in Ireland this year after Fallen Angel’s win in the Irish 1000 Guineas and was a further reminder just how very quickly the powerbase has shifted in northern Flat racing in just a few years.

As recently as 2019, Kingsley House, where Mark Johnston trained before son Charlie took over the licence in 2023, was the dominant training establishment in the North, winning 12 Group races in Britain, Ireland and France compared to five won by Richard Fahey, four by Kevin Ryan and two by David O'Meara (Burke also had two). Roll forward four years to 2023, however, and the hierarchy had changed dramatically with Burke winning a mighty 17 of the 20 Group races the quintet bagged between them with O’Meara the only one of the five to draw a blank.

We are now halfway through this season and already Burke has won nine, Ryan two and Fahey and O’Meara one apiece leaving Johnston as the only one still looking for a first Group win with only Musidora runner-up Francophone of the ten horses he has run in pattern races this season finishing in the first four.

Though on the face of things the yard is ticking over well with 71 domestic wins (Burke has 72) at the time of writing those pattern-race statistics are somewhat sobering for such a proud outfit yet with Goodwood on the horizon a look at the yard’s record at the main Festival meetings this season (Lincoln, Newbury Spring Cup, Craven, Guineas, Chester May, York May, Epsom Derby, Royal Ascot, Northumberland Plate, Eclipse and Newmarket July) suggests the malaise runs a lot deeper than just lack of Group horses.

Johnston has sent a total of 71 horses to those ‘Festival’ meetings this season and come back with just one solitary winner; in contrast, Burke has had 11 winners, Ryan has had nine, Hugo Palmer (though I hesitate to call him a ‘Northern trainer’) has had six, Fahey four, Adrian Nicholls and Gemma Tutty three and Brian Ellison, Ed Bethell and Micheal and David Easterby two, and all other than Burke from far fewer runners than Johnston has saddled with Tutty’s three coming from just ten runners.

Ahead of the King George meeting (where he sent out his only Group winner last year in the Princess Margaret Stakes) and a Goodwood Festival which the stable has always targeted and at which their runners always commanded respect, the lesson for punters is that while those statistics suggest Kingsley House might still have strength in depth in terms of numbers, it doesn’t any longer house anywhere near the quality it used to.

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• Notable success in the 2000 Guineas
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• Is Rosallion further behind City Of Troy?
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