Watch And Learn: Graeme North timefigure analysis, including Constitution Hill

It might be the height of the National Hunt season but there’s only one place to start this week’s round-up and that is at Southwell last Friday where the horse who is still easily the most talked-about jumper in training, albeit more because of an inability to stay on his feet these days than his unquestioned brilliance, made a sparkling debut on the Flat at the age of nine in a contest that somehow even exceeded the extraordinary hype that had preceded it for weeks.

The horse in question is, of course, Constitution Hill, and while the short-term dilemma for his connections is how best to campaign him from now on with the Cheltenham Festival barely three weeks away, let’s delve into his Southwell performance (replay below) and see what it told us about him and his prospects on the Flat should connections lean that way, which it seems is clearly in their thoughts.

Constitution Hill’s unique status within the racehorse population can be summed up in two symbols, x and P; he’s the only horse in training with both a Timeform ‘large P’ on his Flat rating and an ‘x’ on his hurdle rating. I don’t think there’s any doubt that Constitution Hill deserves his large P; while his level of performance on the evening was fairly straightforward to acknowledge, giving the placed horses - who went into the race with ratings of 96 and 91 respectively - beatings Timeform calculated as 10lb and 12lb; assessing how much further than the official nine-and-a-half length winning distance he could have won by had he been ridden out fully – he barely came off the bridle – is not.

That’s the long-established job of the large P, a symbol used to suggest the horse is thought capable of achieving a much higher rating than it is currently credited with, and seems perfectly apt in Constitution Hill’s case in view of his form over hurdles where he is the only horse since Timeform started returning timefigures over jumps who has achieved a rating in that discipline above 170, 178 in his case which is 9lb higher than the next best rating which was achieved by Faugheen. Rated 106P for his Southwell win, Constitution Hill’s winning time translated into a bare timefigure of 95, smart enough in itself for a ‘newcomer’ but one which can be upgraded using the sectional times he recorded for the last two furlongs and the final furlong to 107 – and that, remember, without being asked for maximum effort. It’s hard to argue he’s not Group class.

Should he be trained for a Flat campaign, his connections will be encouraged by age not having proving a barrier to horses scoring at Pattern level on the Flat. While 2004 Nunthorpe winner Bahamian Pirate remains the only horse aged nine or older to have scored at Group 1 level this century in Britain or Ireland, five horses have won at Group 2 level including another horse immensely popular with the racing public, Persian Punch, while another six on top of those already accounted for have scored at Group 3 level, including the still competitive veteran Hamish. Nearly all those winners (including those not mentioned) have been at ‘the margins’ (sprint trips or twelve furlongs and beyond) so it was interesting to look up Constitution Hill’s stride data on the At The Races website shows. Using striding data to inform horse racing analysis is still something of a fringe topic, but there are a few principles among the data that exists that hold good across the racehorse population as a whole and perhaps the biggest correlation of all is the relationship between stride turnover and suitable racing distance – in short, horses that have a very high turnover tend to excel at short trips while those with very low turnovers tend to excel at much longer ones.

Constitution Hill’s data shows that that he displayed an average stride turnover of 2.22 strides per second, a minimum of 2.09 (in the sixth-last furlong) and a maximum (in the penultimate furlong) of 2.37, the typical indicator of a horse able to stay well yet with a sharp turn of foot (his 35.01 final three-furlong time was one of only a handful in recent years at Southwell under 35.1 seconds at a mile and a half). For what it’s worth the horse who over a mile and a half at Southwell since 2023 has posted the closest stride turnover and ability to Constitution Hill (almost identical, in fact) on what was his fourth start (he won a handicap but got disqualified for interference) was Plage De Havre in January last year. He won two of his subsequent five races, both at a mile and a half including the Old Newton Cup where he posted at 110 Timeform rating, but two tries at a mile and three quarters or more ended in disappointment. Food for thought.

In the immediate aftermath of his Southwell win I was of the opinion that Constitution Hill should have a crack at the Champion Hurdle - after all, the race is there for the taking this year with State Man and Sir Gino out and Lossiemouth more likely to head for the Mares’, and even if he fiddled his hurdles he could still probably win with some ease - but on reflection I’m not so sure. Since the start of 2015 the ratio of falls (recorded falls by Timeform reporters, not unseats or anything else ambiguous) to runs over hurdles in Britain and Ireland is approximately 1 in 54; of the 4598 horses (at the time of writing) who have had a minimum of 14 runs over hurdles in that timeframe as Constitution Hill has, only two – low-grade horses Mac Bella and Persuer – have a higher ratio of falls to runs (both four from 18, or 0.222) than his three from his fourteen starts (0.214).

Constitution Hill is also one of only 72 horses in that time to have fallen twice in succession over hurdles (Didtheyleaveuoutto managed the feat three times in good handicap hurdles in 2020 though was twice a victim of circumstance rather than his own making after which his connections nonetheless turned his attentions largely to the Flat having never run on the level before until that time other than in bumpers). Constitution Hill doesn’t have anything left to prove over hurdles other than to show he is as good as he once was but that, of course, might come at significant cost no matter how well he has supposedly schooled at home under new tutelage from Yogi Breisner. Already just one of ten horses among that 4598 who have fallen in three of four consecutive races over hurdles, it would be a wretched postscript to his jumps career were he to become the only one to make it four from five.

Career best from Grangeclare West and Lookaway now

It’s just as well that Constitution Hill ran at Southwell as there was very little to get excited about over obstacles across the week just gone – only one winner, Grangeclare West, managed a timefigure in excess of 150 and only a handful of others managed to run 130 or higher with five of the six Graded or Listed contests eligible for timefigure analysis (Timeform don’t return figures from Thurles) resulting in some derisory numbers (the contest won by Majolique at Naas on Sunday was a farce with the winner taking nearly fifty-nine seconds to cover the first two furlongs).

The Bobbyjo Chase, sponsored by Bar 1Betting, has been an excellent Grand National pointer in recent years having been won by 2025 winner Nick Rockett last year, I Am Maximus in 2024 and Any Second Now in 2022. Grangeclare West, of course, was third in the Grand National last year since when he’s been rather in-and-out, performing creditably in the bet365 Gold Cup at Sandown and the Savills Chase at Leopardstown but running deplorably in his other two starts. Now ten, the evidence this season before the weekend was that he’s perhaps not quite as good as he was last year but his 155 Bobbyjo timefigure was a joint career best (same as he achieved in the National) and the 152 posted by third home Stellar Story was easily a career best even if the runner-up Gerri Colombe didn’t run as well as he can.

Across at Kempton, their feature handicap the Ladbrokes Trophy once again looked a pale imitation of the race it once was when winners of the calibre of Rhyme ‘n’ Reason, Docklands Express and Rough Quest went on to run with credit in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, and its latest winner Lookaway stopped the clock at a lowly 126 on his first start at three miles, clearly very well suited by the increase in distance but even on a charitable assessment of this performance looking about 30lb short of Gold Cup standard.

The other race of interest over fences, the Grade 2 Pendil Novices’ Chase, was won by Jax Junior in a very similar timefigure (128) though he won easily, going clear after three out, and is entitled to be regarded as value for plenty more not least since he ran a 141 timefigure over a slightly shorter trip here in November. The two Grade 2 events over hurdles, both over two miles, the Adonis Juvenile and the Dovecote Novices’, were won by La Luna Artista and Klub De Reve. Easily the more meritorious performance on time came from the latter, 130 compared to the former’s 95, but even that is fairly substandard by recent Dovecote standards and if the subsequent exploits of most recent winners is anything to go by then handicaps rather than Graded races will be bread and butter for all he holds an entry still in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

The other winning timefigure of note on the day came at Chepstow where Keable won a Pertemps qualifier in 132, though given his age and previous profile it’s hard not to think either he or runner-up Gowel Road who has now gone fifteen runs in handicap hurdles since last winning one will feature in the big one itself.

The performance of most merit at Naas on Sunday came from Blood Destiny in the Grade 3 William Hill Bet Builder Chase. With Captain Guinness a shadow of his former self and in receipt of 9lb from his nearest rival on recent form, Touch me Not, Blood Destiny had a simple task and a 141 timefigure is right up there with his best over fences, now unbeaten in both his starts at two miles over the larger obstacles (1-11 over longer trips over fences).

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