Timeform's Graeme North focuses on the Irish weekend action in his latest timefigure analysis while Galia Des Liteaux registered the best domestic performance on the clock.
Big prize could be Blood's destiny
For the second weekend in succession, as tends to be the case domestically over jumps at this unrelentingly gloomy time of year, the fare on offer was of limited interest so I’ll begin my review in Ireland where several bona fide Cheltenham candidates made an appearance, not all of whom retained that status afterwards, however.
Fairyhouse’s Saturday card didn’t contain any Graded races but it did feature several interesting conditions and beginners’ events, kicking off with the Race Displays Hurdle for four-year-olds over two miles.
Won by a couple of decent if not top-class juveniles such as Teahupoo and Mitchouka since its inauguration in 2017, the race has been only ever gone to Gordon Elliott or Gavin Cromwell but, in a further sign of the increasing stranglehold Willie Mullins has on most novice divisions this season, the Closutton handler finally landed the race at the fourth attempt with Blood Destiny.
He had landed a large-field maiden at Cork in December that has worked out well with three of the next six who chased him home having won subsequently. The latest renewal was an unusually deep one with several of those who took him on easily up to the standard of some previous winners, but Blood Destiny took them apart from the front impressively I thought considering his hurdling wasn’t the slickest, even if he might have been allowed a bit too much rope in front from a couple who may have had their eye on a mark for the Fred Winter.
Still having enough in reserve to go away again after the chasers had tried to close between the last two, Blood Destiny passed the post eighteen lengths to the good in a division-leading timefigure of 130.
The only two other juveniles who have run a timefigure within 4lb of that level this season are Jupiter du Gite and Blood Destiny’s stable-companion Zarak The Brave, who has since been beaten by another of their stablemates, Lossiemouth, at Leopardstown over Christmas.
Hopefully the pecking order at the Mullins yard will become clearer after the Dublin Racing Festival as he can’t run them all in the Triumph and he also trains the highly-regarded current third favourite Gala Marceau.
Those who have backed Bo Zenith ( who beat Blood Destiny when the pair made their hurdling debuts in France) to win a race at the Festival will no doubt have looked on ruefully at the result, but at least they have a collateral straw to clutch at with Gary Moore’s charge still not ruled out as far as I am aware.
Corbetts on radar for Albert Bartlett
The other two hurdle races on the card went to Whatcouldhavebeen in a timefigure of 108 and Corbetts Cross in a 122 timefigure, the former upgraded to 115 after sectionals are incorporated and the latter 124, though Corbetts Cross could have won by twice his six-length winning distance had his rider so desired.
I mentioned in this column a couple of weeks ago about the usefulness of circuit times over jumps as a sort of halfway house that can shed light on ability not always divulged either through overall times (because the race might not have been run at a proper gallop throughout) or sectional times (because relying on just one sectional point often paints a misleading picture even when the sectional distance relative to the overall race distance is normalized across all jumps racecourses so that upgrades are measured ‘like for like’).
Without going deeply into the mathematics involved, which aren’t much different to the calculation of overall timefigures, applying this method to the final circuit of hurdles at Fairyhouse sees the progressive Corbetts Cross emerge with a good deal of credit.
While it’s a straightforward task to make time comparisons between races that are run over identical distances, comparing circuit times (the time taken to run the distance between the last obstacle jumped on the penultimate circuit to the winning line on the final circuit) is a little more complex and requires a ‘reduction factor’ to be applied to the circuit times of those races run beyond the minimum distance on the card for the simple reason that horses run slower over longer distances than they do at shorter.
The three hurdles at Fairyhouse were run over two miles, two miles and two-a-half-furlongs (Whatcouldhavebeen) and three miles (Corbetts Cross). Distance reduction factors that are course specific can be calculated by reference to any accurate set of standard times. Applying those to the three hurdles at Fairyhouse, and using Blood Destiny’s race as the baseline standard, his final circuit remains at 247.7 seconds while Whatcouldhavebeen’s reduces from 253.4 seconds to 251.9 and the 252 recorded by Corbetts Cross becomes 246.99.
Applying to those revised circuit times the difference in weights the horses carried as well as weight for age before recalculating the ‘difference at the times’ using the pounds per length used for Blood Destiny’s race (because his is the baseline race) gives Blood Destiny a circuit timefigure of 130, Whatcouldhavebeen a circuit timefigure of 110 and Corbetts Cross a circuit timefigure of 144.
I’ve no idea whether the Albert Bartlett is on his radar, but it seems to me that he’s not far short of the standard usually required already, is accumulating the sort of experience often an asset in that race and has more than enough last-circuit speed to go hand in hand with his proven stamina. If you haven’t yet seen his performance I’d recommend you go and dig the video out and I’ll be surprised if you’re not impressed.
Flame burns brightly in Arkle division
Over fences on the same card, Flame Bearer advertised his undoubted Festival credentials with a wide-margin romp in the beginners chase so dominant that the cameras struggled to keep all the runners in the same camera shot in a scenario reminiscent of Gaelic Warrior’s recent solo at Tramore.
He ran the seventeen-furlong official distance in a time getting on for four seconds slower than the 136 officially rated Rebel Gold managed in the preceding chase but considering he was humping 22lb more that still translates into a marginally faster timefigure (135 compared to 134).
Those ‘facts’ don’t tell anywhere near the full story, however, as Flame Bearer was over five seconds quicker (or around twenty-three lengths) to three out after which that early exuberance told and for which he nearly paid for with a tired mistake at the final fence.
A 90% finishing speed from the third last gives Flame Bearer an upgrade that puts him well into the 160s and had he been ridden a bit more efficiently he could have registered an even bigger timefigure/upgrade combination than he did. His Naas defeat at the hands of Journey With Me came in a very well-run race over nearly two miles five furlongs and not the official two and a half miles, and right now he looks better equipped for the Arkle than the Turners.
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Unusually, Sunday’s Punchestown card started off with a Grade 2 contest, the Sky Bet Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle. Willie Mullins has won the race several times in recent years though not since 2015 with a subsequent Supreme winner (Douvan) and as I see it I doubt Impaire Et Passe will be turning up in the Festival opener to take on stablemate Facile Vega when he seems a more obvious sort (to me anyway) to take up the step to two miles five in the Ballymore.
Even allowing for one-time champion trainer Noel Meade – his string a sad shadow of its former self when he was regularly champion jumps trainer in Ireland - being in shocking form right now, a six-and-a-half length defeat of his mare The Model Kingdom conceding 7lb to her in a 119 timefigure (high 130s when upgrades are incorporated) with a further eight lengths back to the Limerick mares maiden hurdle winner Shecouldbeanything (but clearly isn’t) dropping back from two and a half miles is a bit removed from Supreme-winning form.
Every other day I seem to read posts on social media questioning Facile Vega’s credentials for that race, but as I wrote at the time, since Timeform began returning timefigures over jumps only one other novice has recorded a timefigure higher than he did at Leopardstown as a novice ahead of the Supreme and it seems to me he’s not getting the love his Leopardstown effort deserves.
Over the larger obstacles, Journey With Me was touched off by Impervious in the Grade 3 Madigan Group Novice Chase. The winner, who was stepping up from two miles, saw the longer distance out well at the end of a well-run affair (timefigure 145) and advanced her claims as a serious rival to Allegorie de Vassy in the female division, but the runner-up lost nothing in defeat and would seem to me capable of more improvement at three miles. Ha D’or will need his sights lowered after this I imagine.
Galia shines for the Skeltons
Domestically, the best performance on the clock (143) was carded by Galia Des Liteaux in the Grade 2 Hampton Novices Chase at Warwick. She’s clearly versatile having recorded very similar timefigures at two miles as well as three this year but might also be something of a one-tricky heavy-ground pony at the same time having run a shocker over Kempton’s stiffer fences on faster ground at Christmas.
The progressive Haddex Des Obeaux posted a smart 142 timefigure when winning the Edward Courage Handicap on the same card while the Grade 2 Leamington Novices’ Hurdle went the way of Grey Dawning in a 140 timefigure. Harry Skelton’s six-year-old impressed with his stamina and will surely be open to more improvement up at three miles, but the race was a bubble-bursting one for Knowsley Road, Snake Roll and Givega, none of whom had any excuses it seemed to me other than not being up to the task.
Across at Kempton’s Coral-sponsored card, Pic D’Orhy won the feature chase, the Grade 2 Silviniaco Conti, to make it three in a row for the season.
A sixteen-length defeat of some useful rivals reads well on paper but all of those (all older than him) had questions to answer as is often the case in this type of race and a 126 timefigure dominating from the front suggests to me he was the only one that turned up on the day.
Annsam had earlier won the three-mile handicap in very similar fashion in a 135 timefigure, and the suspicion that testing conditions played their part in some odd margins and results on the card seemed to me summed up by the feature, the Lanzarote Hurdle, where an astonishing fourteen of the twenty runners pulled up and only four finished, West Balboa earning herself a crack at the Mares' Hurdle presumably in winning in a 136 timefigure.
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