Graeme North looks back on the key races at York's Ebor Festival from a timefigure perspective in this week's column.
So far as the good folk of Yorkshire are concerned Sky Bet Ebor week and not Royal Ascot is the highlight of the Flat racing year and after being shut out in 2020 it was good to see racegoers packing out the Knavesmire again - even if I didn’t manage to get there myself.
I’ll deal with the youngsters later, but from a timefigure perspective the biggest performance came from Mishriff in the Juddmonte International Stakes on the opening day.
Mishriff’s six-length win was the largest in the race since the mighty Frankel lit up York in 2012 with the greatest performance the racecourse has ever seen, and though 123 is historically on the low-side for a meeting-leading timefigure it edges north of 130 after Timeform’s sectional upgrades are incorporated.
Timeform use the three-furlong marker to take and analyse their York sectionals but the more detailed if analysis-lacking ones available through Racing TV show that how quickly Mishriff came home – he ran the last two furlongs faster than any other horse on the card except for Hurricane Ivor in the opening five-furlong sprint.
The International was fairly typical of the round-course races all week in that they weren’t run at an out-and-out gallop and Snowfall (113, no upgrade) was another top-class performer who didn’t have to run to the level she had shown herself capable of in the Oaks and Irish Oaks to land a Yorkshire version that lacked depth with Wonderful Tonight finding the ground too fast.
Conditions stayed relatively stable for the third day where Winter Power became the first filly since 2011 and the fourth Northern-trained runner in the last seven years to win the Nunthorpe.
Her winning timefigure of 116 was some way below what the likes of Battaash and Mecca’s Angel have achieved in recent seasons, and probably reflected the fact she was better placed close to the headstrong American challenger Golden Pal whereas Suesa, who I suspect is the better horse, ended up too far away from the action.
It was a shame underfoot conditions pulled the plug on a clash between Trueshan and Stradivarius for the third Cup in succession, but Spanish Mission stepped up to the plate to make sure Stradivarius (84 timefigure) didn’t get things all his own way in a race that developed into a sprint finish and sectionals show that he can be counted unlucky not to have collected.
Conditions deteriorated after the opening race on the final day and especially before the Sky Bet Ebor, so timefigures were harder to return and be confident of.
The Melrose and Ebor both returned solid if not outstanding timefigures in the conditions (93 for Valley Forge, 115 for Sonnyboyliston) but horse I was most impressed with on the day was the final winner Blackrod.
I wasn’t expecting him to overcome an absence dropped back to a fast five furlongs, but he proved me wrong powering home late to score in a career-high 99 timefigure. In the same ownership as Mecca’s Angel, Blackrod has been raised 5lb by the BHA for that effort but his trainer Michael Dods is a dab hand with sprinters, and I expect the 2022 Wokingham is already in his plans.
It’s always satisfying when a well-hatched plan comes off and hopefully more than one reader was cheering home Perfect Power in the Prix Morny on Sunday at the widely available pre-race 7/1 after I put forward a strong case for him in this column last week.
For those who missed it the full version is available here but the gist of the argument was that his Richmond Stakes effort hadn’t been fully appreciated because for all that Timeform rightly awarded him a bigger upgrade than the winner Asymmetric, that upgrade would have been considerably bigger if his finishing speeds from 3f out, 2f out and 1f were used in the equation instead.
By my calculations that gave him an upgrade 8lb higher than Asymmetric from 2f out which may well have been higher from 1f out had he not been stopped more than once.
Anyone who backed him in the Morny watching the race might well have been anxious at seeing him so far back again – I know I was – but the finishing kick he demonstrated at Goodwood and had shown before that in the Norfolk Stakes at Ascot soon surfaced and after a brief trouble-in-running scare – again! - he ended up winning readily from the French-trained Trident with Asymmetric nearly two lengths behind him back in third.
Timeform don’t return timefigures from Deauville as yet, but the finishing splits available via France Galop show that Perfect Power ran the last 600m and 400m getting on for half a second (nearly three lengths) faster than any of his rivals and using estimated finishing pars for Deauville extrapolated from an overall finishing speed model I calculate he is entitled to be rated value for another 2lb over Trident and 3lb over Asymmetric.
Given those upgrades, I don’t doubt that Perfect Power is the best two-year-old around at six furlongs, though I feel Lusail is almost as good. Lusail was notably weak in the market before the Gimcrack last week, which was surprising considering he’d had Asymmetric as well as the subsequent Phoenix Stakes winner Ebro River behind him when winning the July Stakes at Newmarket in a very good time, but he put his doubters to bed with a polished performance and bettered even his July Stakes timefigure with a season-leading 112.
As one would expect of a well-run race, there were no sectional upgrades of any note, runner-up Gis A Sub possibly deserving marking up by 1lb or so, and a clash between Perfect Power and Lusail in the Middle Park Stakes is one to look forward to.
After several weeks of relative inactivity, last week saw a few new names emerging near the top of the list of the fastest juveniles so far, though it also saw two already up there, Point Lonsdale and Reach For The Moon, cement their positions even further.
Point Lonsdale and Reach For The Moon have already met once before, of course, in the Chesham Stakes at Royal Ascot where Point Lonsdale had half a length to spare over the latter in a timefigure of 111 which was, until it was eclipsed at York by Lusail, the highest achieved by a two-year-old this season.
Since then both horses have won twice at prohibitive odds by wide margins, Point Lonsdale in small-field Group events at Leopardstown and the Curragh and Reach For The Moon in a minor event at Newbury and the Solario Stakes at Sandown.
Point Lonsdale ran a 100 timefigure when scoring at the Curragh at the weekend (upgraded by Timeform to 105 after sectionals have been taken into account) whereas Reach For The Moon only needed a 64 timefigure to run out a winner of a slowly-run Solario (it crossed my mind he might have been on the best ground furthest from the rail) but a 37lb upgrade (from 4f out, it would have been higher calculated from closer to the finishing line) elevates that figure to a minimum of 101, not far off the 108 he posted in the Chesham.
A couple of other useful performances on the clock last week came from Royal Patronage in the Acomb Stakes at York and Albahr in the Stonehenge Stakes at Salisbury.
As tends to be the case when some higher-profile or hyped-up rivals don’t give their running, Acomb Stakes winner Royal Patronage didn’t get as much post-race praise coming his way as he ought to have had given his race-winning 107 timefigure under a well-judged front-running ride from Jason Hart would have set an exacting standard anyway.
He’ll be even better at a mile. Albahr isn’t quite as good as he is yet but a 101 timefigure at Salisbury suggests he’ll be worth his place in a Group company before long.
If there is one two-year-old who won a maiden last week I feel strongly is pattern class but might have slipped under the radar, over here at least, then it is Duke De Sessa who won a maiden over a mile at the Curragh on Saturday by nearly five lengths from Adonis in a 99 timefigure that could easily have been a few pounds higher.
He travelled strongly into a well-run race and was nowhere more impressive than after the line where his rider took an age to pull him up. Dermot Weld looks to have a good one on his hands.