Watch And Learn: Graeme North timefigure analysis for the Irish 2,000 and 1,000 Guineas

Horse Racing

Tue May 26, 2026 · 2h ago

Our timefigure expert Graeme North analyses the key action from last week including the feature action from the Curragh.

Grounds for concern... again

With farmers reporting spring crops suffering in the very dry conditions we’ve had of late and Clonmel racecourse in Ireland cancelling three chases at its next fixture because of prolonged dry weather, Haydock’s Temple Stakes meeting somehow began on Thursday with heavy ground at the six-furlong start and ended farcically on Saturday when a large hole was discovered on the course leading to the cancellation of three races.

Thankfully, there were no issues at the Curragh’s Guineas meeting other than the official going description being inaccurate and misleading with historically fast times recorded on both days commensurate with 'Good to Firm' ground and not the ‘Good, Good to Yielding in places' the course advertised on both days.

Gstaad’s Irish 2,000 Guineas win was achieved in 1m 35.69 seconds, 0.41 seconds quicker than the previous fastest renewal this century; Comanche Brave’s Greenlands Stakes win came in a time 0.46 seconds faster than the previous quickest; Causeway’s win in the Gallinule smashed the previous best for the race by 2.26 seconds; while on the second day, Almaqam posted the fastest time in the Tattersalls Gold Cup by 1.61 seconds while Marble Hill winner Great Barrier Reef’s time was second only to Albert Einstein’s and City Of Memphis’ Lanwades Stud time was second only to Porta Fortuna’s (the only ‘modest’ winning time in all the Group races across the two days came in the Irish 1,000 Guineas).

Fast times are a consequence of fast conditions first and foremost and don’t always translate into fast timefigures for reasons I’ve spelt out many times before, but Saturday’s three Group winners all posted good figures, which we can be confident about because of the developing database of comprehensive Irish sectional time data that helps inform the level at which the final going allowance (loosely speaking the amount by which race times across a meeting differs from what might be expected given the abilities of the horses involved) is set.

Gstaad’s winning time translates into a raw timefigure of 116 which is 2lb below what Field Of Gold achieved last year and 8lb below the level Churchill reached in 2017, though a 3lb sectional upgrade measured across each of the last three furlongs elevates that figure to 119 which is 1lb below the 120 performance rating he was given by Timeform.

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It’s perhaps not surprising that Gstaad wasn’t able to improve his figures as there wasn’t really anything among the opposition to test him – he had 10lb in hand on pre-race Timeform ratings in an uncompetitive contest where four runners had 20lb or more to find. 120 (his timefigure at Newmarket, incidentally) or 123 is not normally good enough to win the St James’s Palace Stakes where he’ll likely clash again with Bow Echo, but I doubt Gstaad was fully wound up for the Guineas whereas the heavily-backed Bow Echo was, and I fancy he’ll get closer if they meet again, quite possibly considerably closer.

Gstaad was one of three winners on the day for Aidan O’Brien when partnering up with Ryan Moore scoring also with Sergei Diaghilev in the opening maiden and Causeway in the Gallinule.

Sergei Diaghilev’s time was a slow one, equating to just 56 albeit coming with 20lb upgrade, slightly less than third-placed Folsom Blue merited, but Causeway’s was eye-opening corresponding to a timefigure of 113. The yard has won the race numerous times before, including with subsequent St Leger winner Leading Light in 2013 and Cox Plate winner Adelaide in 2014 Recent winners haven’t been quite so good, and O’Brien wasn’t especially effusive about Causeway afterwards, mentioning only that’s he’s very lazy and would stay very well, but unusually he looks to be underselling the horse in view of his top-class pedigree (by Wootton Bassett out of a Galileo sister to the multiple Group 1-winning Magical).

A 113 timefigure is easily race leading in the decade or so since Timeform started returning timefigures in Ireland and his maximum stride length as reported by RaceIQ of 8.45m (or 27.72 feet) was the longest by some considerable margin of all the winners at the track across the two days. A minimum stride frequency of 2.13 strides per second and a maximum of 2.33 are figures consistent with an even longer distance being even more suitable and this looks a race to keep a close eye on, with runner-up Zia Zabeel also exhibiting similar figures.

Moore also took the Greenlands Stakes with Comanche Brave who was last seen in Hong Kong out with the washing behind the outstanding Ka Ying Rising.

That’s not the race to judge him on, challenging wide from behind the winner at the end of a three-race stint in the Far East, but it looks as if last season’s Jersey third might finally have found his niche judged on the 118 timefigure he clocked even before a 3lb upgrade is factored in and he’s surely a leading contender for the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes on the final day of Royal Ascot.

Another horse who ought to be bound for Berkshire but holds no entries there yet is listed Orby winner Purview. A 96 timefigure aided by a 19lb upgrade which could be as high as 23lb gives him an minimum overall timerating of 115; indeed, the 10.71 penultimate furlong he ran towards the end of the mile-and-a-half contest is only a length slower than Comanche Brave ran when bursting clear at the same stage of the Greenlands.

Precise doesn't appeal for Oaks (not at Epsom, anyway)

The second day seemed to me slightly unsatisfactory, with the suspicion of a ‘dead rail’ and a faster strip towards the centre seemingly evident in some of the races, including the Irish 1,000 Guineas where the field split early into two separate groups with the winner coming widest of all shooting to the front inside the last furlong with a sharp burst of speed that took her clear quickly near the line, chased home by rail runners True Love and Abashiri.

The ordinary pace set by Abashiri ensured the Precise’s winning timefigure wouldn’t be high and it came in at 99, 17lb below her form rating, albeit boosted by a 6lb sectional upgrade, 4lb higher than the best of the other two in the frame.

Though she finished strongly, as she did when winning the Fillies’ Mile at Newmarket last year, and is out of a Galileo mare, if any of the Oaks would suit her it would surely be Chantilly and not Epsom or the Curragh but even then she might go there as second string to Diamond Necklace. Abashiri looks well worth stepping up in trip and will be an interesting runner if she turns up in the Ribblesdale at Ascot.

As it has done every year since 2018, and even after Timeform’s standard time for the not-often-used ten-and-a-half-furlong distance was toughened considerably, the Tattersalls Gold Cup produced a good timefigure with the winner Almaqam crossing the line in 123. That’s 2lb higher than his previous best, achieved in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes last year, and finally laid to rest, if it hadn’t been already, his connection’s long-held insistence that he needs soft ground to show his best form.

Get Kieran Shoemark's thoughts on Almaqam

Almaqam beat Ombudsman in the Brigadier Gerard but even after this improved performance can’t be rated his superior, and for the moment too remains behind Minnie Hauk who hasn’t come close to repeating her Arc form in three runs since and whose lifeless display here was put down rather oddly to the ‘very slow mid-race tempo’ by her trainer.

O’Brien did at least win one of the other two Group races on the card, the Marble Hill Stakes with Ascot bound Great Barrier Reef. Finding plenty to lead inside the last half furlong, he posted a 97 timefigure, which is the fourth highest in the race in the last decade. Second favourite for the Coventry he might be, but it’s interesting to note that the Royal Ascot form figures of Marble Hill winners since the race was increased in distance to six furlongs are 43443 (another interesting Royal Ascot two-year-old statistic while I’m on the subject, and slightly off-putting if you have backed current clear Queen Mary favourite Wild Blossom, is that her sire Mehmas has never sired a winner there from over seventy runners with barely a handful reaching a place).

The other Group race at the Curragh, the Lanwades Stud, went to the progressive City Of Memphis in 99.

Burke dominates Haydock

At least the Temple Stakes and the Sandy Lane were salvaged from the debacle at Haydock with the former (over six furlongs) going to Venetian Sun and the latter (five) going to Night Raider.

Venetian Sun’s two defeats have both been beyond six furlongs, in the Moyglare won by Precise last year and in the 1000 Guineas on her reappearance, but her trainer knows the time of day with sprinters, and it looked significant that had no hesitation in dropping her straight down in distance to a trip she last ran at in the Prix Morny when beating Gstaad.

It would be something of an understatement to say she won well, tanking through the race and scooting clear when finally given he head, beating Division by three lengths in a 108 timefigure.

If she looks a much-improved filly this year, so too does her stable-companion Night Raider look a much improved five-year-old. It’s taken a while for the penny to drop with him, but he overcame a slow start to win decisively from last year’s King Charles III winner American Affair.

A time comparison with the concluding three-year-old handicap over the same trip limits the timefigure he can be given (it was just 99, 14lb below his best) and he still has some improving to do to put his Royal Ascot record right (last in the Jersey, 12th in the King Charles III) but it might be now he settles better that a step back up to six furlongs might bring about a bit more progress.

Third-placed Beautiful Diamond, on what also looked a dead rail, caught me eye and did enough to suggest she could finally win a Group race this season.

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