Timefigure analysis of Vadeni, Free Wind and Coltrane following Coral-Eclipse day

So, how good was the Coral-Eclipse on Saturday? It has to be said here and now that neither Vadeni’s winning time nor its accompanying timefigure (111) were exceptional given Tom Marquand on the pace-setting Alenquer didn’t seem minded to make the most of his horse's stamina, but in pretty much every other respect it was a high-quality renewal (if not quite the top-quality one it had promised to be at the start of the week) looking at the collective quality of the runners among whom all bar one (oddly the favourite Bay Bridge) had been successful at Group One level.

Exactly how the field assembled for the latest Eclipse compares to other big races run in Britain, France and Ireland run over the last ten years seemed an interesting question in view of the pre-race hullabaloo on social media, so I queried the Timeform database to find out.

There are several approaches I could have used, not all mentioned here. Average Timeform pre-race master rating of all the runners is one, but that approach leaves itself open to one or more exceptional horses skewing the average for a field that also contains second-raters, such as the 2014 ‘Duel On The Downs’ when the top-class milers Kingman and Toronado ended up taking on two much more lowly-rated no-hopers. I could also have used the number of Group winners in opposition, but mindful that not all Group races and where they are won are equal, I settled on using the number of horses lining up whose pre-race Timeform master rating was a minimum of 123, which is the figure Lord North, the lowest-rated horse in this year’s Eclipse, took into the race.

By this criterion, the 2022 Eclipse lives up to the pre-race hype. The highest number of horses (11) in any race with a minimum Timeform rating of 123 in the period under review have been the 2014, 2015 and 2017 runnings of the Arc, renewals which all had seventeen or more runners. The race that emerges with the highest concentration of high-class runners is the 2019 Arc won by Waldgeist where ten of the twelve runners were rated 123 or higher. Among six-runner races, however, the 2022 Eclipse is unmatched in terms of quality concentration and the only other race I could find where none of the runners were rated lower than 123 going into the race was the 2020 King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes won by Enable which attracted only three runners.

As mentioned, Vadeni’s 111 timefigure is down towards the bottom of winning Eclipse timefigures since 2000, a list that is still bossed by the mighty Sea The Stars who posted a 132 performance in 2009 when his winning time was also the fastest this century. Indeed, Vadeni’s time was only a second or so faster than the fairly useful handicapper Arqoob managed in a decent but unspectacular handicap later in the afternoon.

Vadeni ran the last three furlongs faster than all his opponents according to the sectionals returned by Course Track (Timeform take theirs from four furlongs out at Sandown and Vadeni comes out the fastest here too, enough to earn him an upgrade of 8lb) but the furlong-by-furlong sectionals available show that Mishriff ran the fastest final furlong despite getting hampered and without doubt ran an even faster relative last half-furlong despite those figures not being available.

That late burst isn’t entirely visible in his 7lb upgrade given the starting point they are calculated from, but it seemed to me he was a most unlucky loser. As I mentioned at the time of Vadeni’s Prix du Jockey-Club win, two horses (Al Hakeem and Onesto, who finished fourth and fifth respectively after being dropped in from wide draws) ran the last 600m faster than he did. That’s not to say either of them will be a match for Vadeni under different circumstances, of course, but their next appearances will be awaited with interest, not least Onesto who’d previously run each of the last five furlongs faster than any of his rivals when winning the Prix Greffulhe comprehensively on his previous start. He’s still in the Grand Prix de Paris at ParisLongchamp at the end of next week, so hopefully will run there.

The Coral -Eclipse might have been the most important race of the weekend domestically but the most impressive performance sectionally was put up by Free Wind in the Lancashire Oaks at Haydock on her first run since running away with the Park Hill Stakes at Doncaster last autumn.

Most of the post-race attention centered on the ban handed out to Rab Havlin while Jim Crowley got away scot free, but the way Free Wind recovered after being involved in a game of dodgems over a furlong out was wildly impressive, particularly her final furlong which was the fastest winning furlong all afternoon, save for the steadily run seven-furlong contest that concluded the card.

Once again, circumstance means that the upgrade awarded the winner isn’t fully reflective of her finishing effort because the upgrade is calculated from a sectional point long before her relevant contribution took place, but using methodology similar to that applied to Maljoom in the St James’s Palace Stakes which I highlighted here, a 2lb superiority upgrade over Eshaada calculated from the three-furlong marker (which doesn’t take into account trouble in running, obviously) escalates to one nearer 10lb using a tighter set of closing sectionals and as much as 13lb if her final furlong effort is weighted most heavily of all.

The Gosden’s have an enviable set of middle-distance fillies, but after this performance - Eshaada won the 2021 Champion Fillies Mares, remember - I’d question whether Emily Upjohn is still their number one. The 6/1 available about Free Wind for the Yorkshire Oaks next month looks decent value.

Free Wind’s feat of winning on her seasonal reappearance following a long break was repeated at Saint-Cloud on Sunday where Sir Mark Prescott’s Alpinista landed the Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud by just over a length from the upwardly mobile Baratti.

With Hurricane Lane, Mare Australis, High Definition and Third Realm all running disappointingly, the race has something of a thin look to it at the top end, but the McLloyd tracking sectionals show that the right horse won on the day with Alpinista running the last 600m fastest of all, albeit marginally. Alpinista had won the Lancashire Oaks in 2021, of course, before running a career-best in the Preis Von Europa, ending 2021 showing better form than Free Wind, but whether she’ll be able to stay one step ahead of her rival I’m not so sure and she is available at a bigger price in the ante-post market for the Yorkshire Oaks.

The best timefigure performance last week (117) was put up by Coltrane in the Coral Marathon.

Last seen winning the two-and-a-half mile Ascot Stakes at Royal Ascot, following a second place in the Chester Cup, Coltrane is improving hand over fist and despite the drop to two miles made light of what appeared to be a stiff task at the weights by trouncing Rodrigo Diaz by 10 lengths. The race might have been set up for him – the three horses that forced the pace all finished well beaten – but in running the last three furlongs almost a second and a half faster than any of the other runners he did enough on the clock to think he’s without doubt a Group-class stayer.

That already makes Ascot runner-up Bring On The Night an even more likely candidate for the Cesarewitch than he was already, not least given he ran the last three furlongs at Ascot faster than Coltrane from what was a difficult position turning in.

I’m not entirely sure what went on in the week leading up to Pontefract’s meeting last Monday that led to an unexpected fast strip along the stands' rail in the height of summer, but excessive and inconsistent watering probably wouldn’t be too far from the top of likely culprits.

The amount of water put on the track wasn’t made public – the Stewards’ report on the BHA site mentions only ‘watered’ – but I live close enough to the track to know the area hadn’t been deluged with rain in the build-up to the meeting and I doubt the rainfall on the morning of the meeting was sufficient to induce a bias usually only seen on slow ground in the depths of autumn.

It was clear as early as the first race that something was afoot with the runners well strung out even before they had reached the straight, and distances between the runners at the finish of 32 lengths, 22 lengths and 14 lengths is not consistent with fair summer ground.

The course executive might argue their primary responsibility is the health and safety of horses and riders, but the sport is funded first and foremost by betting and any suspicion on the part of punters that they are being hoodwinked will lead only to more of them drifting away from the sport.

Figures released recently show that racecourse attendances declined by a third in May compared to the same period in 2019 and, with the potentially disastrous Gambling Review on the horizon, the sport can ill afford to lose any more of its core supporters.

The most astonishing item on the Stewards’ report for the meeting was the summoning of the connections of the concluding winner Late Arrival (officially rated 65 but who won the last race in a time three seconds faster than the winners of the other six-furlong races and whose timefigure would have been 112 had I accepted it at face value) for an explanation in the improvement of the horse’s form – as if it wasn’t bleeding obvious to anyone watching that Joanna Mason had made the most of a strip of ground that shouldn’t have been there.

Fortunately, the BHA handicapper responsible for rating the race showed more sense and only raised his official rating 5lb. Hopefully there won’t be a repeat at the meeting going ahead today (July 5th).

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