Watch and Learn: Timefigure analysis on Sun Chariot and more from Graeme North
By Graeme North
13:43 · WED October 09, 2024
Our timefigure guru Graeme North rounds up all the key action from Britain and Ireland last week.
With a good number of the best horses around in action in Paris last weekend, it’s perhaps no surprise that there were relatively few fireworks from a timefigure perspective last week in either Britian or Ireland.
As such, given I’ll be covering all the recent French action (which also included a very good card at Saint-Cloud last Friday besides the two higher-profile days at ParisLongchamp) in my next North On Sunday column, this week’s Watch And Learn piece focuses on the best of the domestic action is a fair bit shorter than usual.
There was only one Group One here last week and that was the Virgin Bet Sun Chariot that took place at Newmarket on Saturday.
How good was Tamfana's Sun Chariot performance?
Oddly enough, the race is seldom one that has returned a good timefigure in recent years, with the best since 2010 being the 112 Roly Poly posted in 2017, a far cry from the 120 Spinning Queen returned in 2006 or 117 Attraction registered in 2004, and once again the latest renewal was a dawdling affair which was hardly surprising given that the field (just six runners) was the smallest for almost 20 years and none of the sextet were known for making the pace.
As it was, this year’s German 1000 Guineas winner Darnation, back from a two-month absence, who was sent to the front but only ended up giving Tamfana, who earlier in the season had finished an unlucky fourth in the 1000 Guineas and third in the French Oaks, the perfect tow into the race with her higher-profile rivals Inspiral and Nashwa settled at the rear of the field, the former after a slow start and the latter, who was making her first appearance since March, racing too freely for her own good not for the first time.
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Anyone who followed the action at Longchamp over the weekend will have been aware that different jockey bookings would probably have resulted in different outcomes but there’s no suggestion to me at least that the booking of Colin Keane (who was replacing Oisin Murphy who rode a winner later on the card) was the catalyst for an improved performance, simply that her rider kept things simple in this race while others overcomplicated matters.
A performance rating of 121 is up there with the best of her sex and generation at a mile, marginally inferior to the 122 Ramatuelle (who was third in the 1000 Guineas) posted in the Prix de la Foret the following day, but thanks to the gallop her winning timefigure was only a modest 85, albeit boosted by an 18lb sectional upgrade (runner-up Inspiral got 19lb, as did fourth-placed Elmalka) that took her overall timerating to 103, below the 107 she posted in the Guineas when blocked in her run and looking unlucky.
Inspiral ran creditably in second, briefly looking a threat having come through from the rear, while Nashwa wasn’t given a hard time but didn’t really do enough to know whether she has retained all her ability or not.
The rest of the Newmarket card was very ordinary by comparison; none of the other winners managed a timefigure better than 92 but at least the valuable juvenile sales race provided an exciting watch as it had last year when the heavily-backed and seemingly thrown-in Zoulu Chief hared off at an unsustainable pace before losing several places inside the final furlong.
This time the seemingly-exposed Ruby’s Profit played that same role before being picked off on the closing stages with the horse that ended up winning, The Dragon King, swooping from last place (and a detached last at that) at halfway. An 88 timefigure, a fair way below his performance rating, is rather suggestive of muddling form.
There was a much deeper quality card across at Ascot which kicked off with the Listed Rous Stakes over five furlongs. Run a day before the Prix de l’Abbaye, it wasn’t the strongest contest of its type unsurprisingly, attracting just six runners, and ended up going to Rumstar who was winning his first race since the Cornwallis as a two-year-old albeit he’d been running well in high-class sprint handicaps of late.
The pace wasn’t as strong as can usually be expected with Democracy Dilemma in the line-up as his blindfold came off late so not starting anywhere near as fast as he can and Rumstar’s winning timefigure was an ordinary 98, the far-from-breakneck pace also negatively impacting the favourite Relief Rally who ran well below form.
The following Group Three Cumberland Lodge Stakes was the only race run on the round course and so wasn’t the easiest to assess from a timefigure perspective because of that besides which there had been some drainage work on the track since the last meeting, but it looked as though Al Qareem was setting a pace in front to suit himself and not his rivals and so it turned out, a 93 timefigure several pounds below he’d registered when winning the same race the previous year and seen to much better advantage than the runner-up Al Aasy who’d beaten the winner at Newbury last time but ended up being waited with for far too long by Cieren Fallon who was riding him for the first time (horse takes a bit of knowing) and couldn’t make any impression on the winner.
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Volterra can fly higher
The Group Three Bengough Stakes was another underwhelming contest on the clock with Apollo One’s winning timefigure coming in at an underwhelming 79, a second boost on the day for the form of the Portland Handicap in which Rumstar had also contested last time, but the following heritage handicap over seven furlongs ended up being the race which provided the highest winning timefigure of the week with Volterra’s 111 on the back of a three-and-a-quarter length defeat of the regally bred Qirat pretty much bang on his 114 performance rating.
That sort of level meant he wouldn’t have looked out of place in the following day’s Prix de la Foret at Longchamp, and pattern events are where he is surely heading next after making all the running and forging clear inside the final furlong. Making all in a competitive big-field handicap isn’t achieved often over seven furlongs or a mile but it’s not impossible as Ostilio (in the same colours) showed several years back in the Britannia and he went on the win a Group Two Prix Daniel Wildenstein later the same season.
Interestingly, Volterra scored off a four pounds higher official mark than Ostilio so the omens are bright for a repeat.
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The final Listed race on the card, the October Stakes over the same trip as the heritage handicap, went the way of one of the outsiders, Sunfall, who got the better of Queen Of Mougins and a horse I gave a good write-up too at the York Ebor meeting, Elim, who has been sent off a very short price on both starts since. Elim might not have been best placed as the race developed, out on the wing after a slow start, but she’d have found the winner a tough nut to crack anyway given how gamely she battled back after being headed, not least given she reached the three-furlong marker getting on for three lengths faster than Volterra had half an hour earlier.
The previous day at Ascot, the feature Listed Noel Murless Stakes had gone the way of Andrew Balding’s Subsequent who ran out a clear-cut winner in a 105 timefigure. His form has quickly risen to a new level since he’s been upped to a mile and three quarters or more on his last three starts and this was a career best effort by some way on the clock suggesting that further improvement is on the cards in pattern races next year when he is stepped up to two miles.
Returning to Saturday, Redcar staged one of its two ‘big’ meetings featuring the latest editions of the Two-Year-Old Trophy and the Guisborough Stakes.
The days when the winners of the juvenile race posted timefigures well into three figures – Log Out Island in 2015, Limato in 2014 and Bogart in 2011 – seem to be behind us and the 98 returned by the latest winner Candy is towards the bottom end of the scale of those posted by recent winners.
Unfortunately it was another big field race at the track spoiled by the draw, with those horses drawn high having next to no chance – Uncle Don, who’d caught my eye at the Ayr Western meeting is definitely worth keeping onside despite his seventh-place finish because of that – but it was a big improvement all the same from Candy who’d last been seen winning a nursery off a mark of 76, well below the level usually required to win this contest, even in its diminished recent years.
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The Guisborough Stakes attracted just six runners of whom three had little chance on form and were plainly there in search of Black Type, but the three who fought out the finish, Grey’s Monument, Northern Express and Ramazan had as little between them at the end of the race as they did beforehand. Once again, though, the winning time wasn’t anything to shout home about, slower even than the opening two-year-old novice albeit the first two home then, Arabian Angel and Seraph Gabriel, are probably smart northern youngsters, returning timefigures of 90 and 96 respectively.
There wasn’t much of significance happening on the timefigure front in Ireland last week, either.
None of the five Listed races that took place earned a higher figure than 98 which was posted by the six-year-old Mutasarref over a mile at Cork. The best figure put up by a juvenile in those contests was the 97 recorded by Aidan O’Brien’s Right And True in the Star Appeal Stakes at Dundalk which wasn’t much higher than the best in the division outsid Listed events, 94 by Likedbymike in a five-furlong maiden at Cork. Hopefully, there will be more quality to talk about in next week’s column where, space permitting, Chepstow’s opening jumps fixture might make an appearance.
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