Who impressed on the clock over Christmas? Graeme North is back with his unmissable Timefigure analysis in a bumper edition of Watch and Learn.
Constitution Hill was 'satisfactory'
Racecourse attendances might have been up over the Christmas period but viewing the action from afar on the small screen was a tough watch on the specialist racing channels. Eight meetings on the same channel on Boxing Day once again led to inevitable multiple split-screen clashes which is bad enough in itself when visibility is fine but downright exasperating when it isn’t, as was the case this year with thick fog.
Fortunately there were no visibility issues at Kempton on Boxing Day where the most fascinating of the three Grade 1 races was not the Ladbrokes King George VI Chase as it often is but the Christmas Hurdle clash between Constitution Hill and Lossiemouth, if only to make public the current well-being of the 2023 Champion Hurdle winner whose racecourse appearances since winning this race last season had been restricted to a couple of underwhelming public gallops.
As it happened, Constitution Hill got the job done satisfactorily enough, recording a 160 timefigure, which, his Supreme win aside in 178, is right up with the best of his other timefigures. However, it should be remembered that figure is to an extent influenced by the interpretation put upon the performance not just of Lossiemouth (who pinned her ears back early and never really travelled to my eye) but more significantly Burdett Road who under relatively fast and suitable conditions clearly improved (though it's debatable exactly how much) and would have finished a fair bit closer still but for nearly losing his back legs at the last.
All the same, it’s good to have Constitution Hill back, even if it's not conclusively – not yet anyway – the old Constitution Hill.
Potters will need to pull out more
The King George went to Banbridge in 158, 12lb less than the 170-performance rating Timeform gave him and 6lb less than the 164 timefigures he has twice run to before. Conditions on the chase track were around 23lb slower than they had been the previous year, though still good to soft, which perhaps partly explains why Il Est Francais wasn’t quite able to see his race out, on top of which he reached the second last effectively five lengths faster than he had in 2023 against lesser opposition after normalising the two race times.
Plenty of those behind were never at the races, Spillane’s Tower and Corbetts Cross chief amongst them, and though they might still have the Gold Cup on their radar, the first two look a better fit for shorter distances; indeed, Il Est Francais, whose two runs at Kempton have been far in excess of what he has achieved in the mud at stamina-sapping Auteuil where he has otherwise spent all his career over obstacles, has more than enough pace and ability (ran to 168 here, plenty of form in France at shorter trips) to think he would be an interesting runner in the Champion Chase - or a Champion Hurdle for that matter.
In contrast to the King George, the Kauto Star won by The Jukebox Man was run at an ordinary gallop with the winning time ending up thirteen seconds slower than Il Est Francais had recorded the previous year. That slow time translated into a timefigure of just 105; the winner is clearly very smart but if there’s still one small doubt he needs to quell it’s his ability to run to a high level in a strongly-run race with none of his timefigures under any discipline so far coming in higher than 119.
Timefigures were just about possible at Aintree, though given the conditions those returned were necessarily defensive. Potters Charm won the Grade 1 William Hill Formby Novices' Hurdle but once again failed to impress on the clock, posting a 131, though that at least was the best on the fog-ridden card and third highest on the day domestically by a winner under any discipline.
Good idea to keep Neighbour on side
Across in Ireland there were three Graded contests, two at Leopardstown and one at Limerick, but none of the trio resulted in anything particularly eye-catching. Croke Park followed up his surprise win in the Drinmore with another game front-running narrow-margin success, looking to jump well when the runners weren’t clouded in thick fog, and just about having enough in hand to fend off stablemate Better Days Ahead in a 145 timefigure.
Victory in the Grade 2 three-year-old hurdle went not to talking horse Willy De Houelle for whom plenty had been his excusing his Fairyhouse defeat but to Hello Neighbour who was not only making a winning debut over hurdles but was sent off favourite to do so after two Flat wins. He followed in the footsteps of his stable-companion Bottler’secret who also won a Graded juvenile event at the first time of asking over hurdles earlier this year at Naas, also after two wins on the Flat, before going on to win a Grade 2 at Fairyhouse and then finishing second behind Kargese at the Punchestown Festival.
Given the only other horse to have won a Graded juvenile hurdle on its hurdling debut since 2020 was subsequent Triumph Hurdle winner Burning Victory (Lossiemouth had run over hurdles once in France) then the Cheltenham omens must be good for Hello Neighbour whose 131 timefigure is better than either Burning Victory or Bottler’secret (and Lossiemouth) achieved in their Graded wins.
The Big Westerner showed easily the best turn of foot in the slowly-run Grade 2 Dorans Pride at Limerick (timefigure just 85) but her trainer Henry de Bromhead won a maiden hurdle at Leopardstown with Workahead who paid a fine compliment to his Navan conqueror Jasmin De Vaux, clocking a 135, while on the same card Kopek des Bordes (Willie Mullins) won a strong-looking similar event in 132.
Arkle clash could be something special
Regular readers of this column, or at least those with long memories, will know I have something of a love-hate relationship with Sir Gino having advised backing him at 20/1 (and Salvator Mundi at 16/1) for the 2024 Triumph Hurdle after the pair had finished one-two in a newcomers hurdle at Auteuil in April 2023, after which they were both snapped up by the Donnelly family.
A top-health Sir Gino would surely have won the Triumph last March had he not been taken out as a precaution (Salvator Mundi was thrown in at the last minute without a prep and is now joint favourite for the 2025 Supreme) and his clash with Majborough in the 2025 Arkle will be something to savour presuming the pair don’t clash beforehand.
Again, the final timefigure awarded to Sir Gino is influenced by the view taken not only of his performance, glass ceiling or otherwise, but of Soul Icon’s win from out of the handicap in the Grade 2 chase over the same distance later in the card.
Even so, Sir Gino covered the two-mile distance 24lb faster despite cantering home from the last after burning off Ballyburn, who clouted the last, and a cautious view of what Soul Icon achieved could conceivably have Sir Gino rated a minimum of 166 (Timeform settled for 159) even before any allowance is made for what he might have found had he been ridden out fully.
Even allowing for the relatively modest pre-Christmas record Willie Mullins has in Britain with his Graded runners (just one winner per ten runners compared to one in six in March/April) there doesn’t seem much likelihood that Ballyburn, himself no slouch over two miles having beaten Supreme winner Slade Steel easily at the Dublin Racing Festival, will be reversing form at the trip. But in view of a potential step up in distance it’s worth remembering his 154 timefigure is still 8lb higher than anything any novice has achieved on the clock over fences over two and three quarter miles or more this season.
Good timefigures were thin on the ground elsewhere in Britain the same afternoon (Lowry’s Bar did best, posting a 144 at fogbound Chepstow) but across at Leopardstown Solness and Romeo Coolio both posted decent numbers in the feature Grade 1 events. Race fitness and track position, widest of all out in front, almost certainly all contributed in part to the 160 Solness recorded in the Grade 1 Paddy’s Reward Club Chase, a figure which looks solid enough on the previous achievements of Gaelic Warrior and Marine Nationale behind him in second and third, but so substantial an increase on anything he’d achieved before – last win came at Sligo in October, previous best timefigure 145 – that it’s not difficult to view it with a degree of suspicion.
Romeo Coolio posted a 147 in the Future Champions Novice Hurdle, seeing off Bleu de Vassy with ease, and rightly deserves his place alongside Salvator Mundi at the head of the Supreme market.
Rampant Gold Cup hero still the standard-setter
The Savills Chase wasn’t run at a flat-out end to end gallop but even so Galopin Des Champs (162, 10lb below his form rating) posted easily the best figure on the clock anywhere on Saturday, no less impressive than he had been on heavy ground twelve months earlier when winning by 23 lengths in a 160 and clearly on this rampant-at-the-finish evidence still the one to beat in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2025 having won that race in 2024 when clocking 175 and 2023 when clocking 177.
Fact To File had no answer to the winner’s burst of speed after the last but still clocked a 155, his second-best figure after his John Durkan win where he had Galopin Des Champs back in third. If there’s a slight doubt about the form it’s the proximity of Heart Wood, beaten by Croke Park in novice company last time, back in third but he demolished a large field in a handicap here at the Dublin Racing Festival back in February and clearly has an affinity with the course.
The Savills Hurdle (113) was slowly run and was won for the second time in three years by Home To The Lee but with four-year-old handicapper Rocky’s Diamond reasonably close up in fourth and several no shows in behind from the more exposed older contingent this form has more of a Grade 3 than Grade 1 look about it.
Similar can be said about Impaire Et Passe’s win in the Faugheen Novice Chase (138) though the race didn’t really develop until approaching the home turn and given he went clear in the short time after the last is probably worth a bit above the result, an observation that also applies to Challow winner The New Lion who wasn’t hard pressed to come clear at the end of a steadily-run race (121 timefigure). Paul Nicholls might not have got the Challow result he wanted with high-profile inmate Regent’s Stroll who was too keen under restraint but a 137 timefigure in the last by stablemate Inthewaterside on his chasing debut augurs well for his future over fences.
Time to try and emulate Dawn Run?
Easily the most fascinating race in advance of racing on Sunday was the Neville Hotels Hurdle for which State Man, the winner for the last two years, was sent off odds on despite only having 3lb in hand of Brighterdaysahead on Timeform’s weight-adjusted ratings, yet it developed into something even more intriguing as it panned out with Brighterdaysahead and her stablemate and pacemaker King of Kingsfield ignored by the other four runners.
Despite all his experience and knowledge of the track, which features a drop of seventeen metres from the winning post to the lowest point of the back straight, Paul Townend on State Man allowed his mount to lose nine lengths on King of Kingsfield between the first and fourth flights (having already been four down jumping the first) and another three lengths between the fourth and the seventh.
The effort of catching King of Kingsfield from so far back caught out State Man after the last, losing second to the ten-year-old Winter Fog who was ridden from even further back, but Brighterdaysahead was long gone by then at the conclusion of a well-judged and efficient ride in which the finishing speed came in at around 98%.
So, what to do next with a mare who posted a timefigure of 166? Well, to put that in recent historical context, since Timeform started returning timefigures in 2015, no mare has run to such a high figure on the clock – the only others to surpass 160 were Honeysuckle (164) when winning the 2021 Champion Hurdle, Annie Power (162) when winning the 2016 Champion Hurdle, Apple’s Jade (162) when winning the 2019 Irish Champion Hurdle, Verdana Blue (162) when winning the Scottish Champion Hurdle over a slightly questionable distance in 2019 and Apple’s Jade again (161) when winning the Hatton’s Grace in 2018.
For a mare with the physique to develop into an even better chaser, the Champion Hurdle and the possibility of emulating Dawn Run would appear to be the obvious answer, but sadly it seems connections have other ideas.
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