Watch And Learn: Graeme North timefigure analysis

When I first started getting interested in properly analysing horse racing on the Flat rather than going along purely for the enjoyment, as I had done when cutting my formative teeth in the point-to-point fields of the Northern area circuit before graduating to the real thing at the likes of Sedgefield and Hexham, Newmarket’s July meeting was the one festival fixture I most looked forward to in the calendar.

Whether it was Royal Ascot form coming under the microscope, fiercely competitive large-field handicaps or the likelihood of future stars showing up in one of the maidens I’m not quite sure, but thinking back probably a combination of all three.

The first of those scenarios still exists, of course, as does the last of them. Field Of Gold and Desert Flower both won maidens at the 2024 Festival, continuing a long line of notable winners stretching back this century to Dubai Destination and Gossamer in 2001. But it seems to me the handicaps have lost their lustre as well as their numbers. Between 2001 and 2013 inclusive, none of the three-day meetings attracted fewer than 221 runners and one of them (2007) even drew 310.

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Since 2013, however, only four of the 13 Festivals have attracted more than the minimum 221 just mentioned, with 2023 (just 181 runners) and 2025 (190) being among the three-lowest drawing years this century.

It’s not as if fast ground is the issue – Timeform called the going good to firm on all three days in 2007, good on one day in 2025, and a combination of good and good to soft for two of the three days in 2023 – which ought to be highly concerning for those who’ve suddenly woken up to the ramifications of the ‘Racing Tax’ whatever the racecourse attendance over the three days (reportedly up five per cent) might have suggested about the health of the fixture.

One thing that didn’t change at the July Festival this year, however, was the dominance once again of Charlie Appleby who was the leading trainer in terms of winners saddled at the meeting for the seventh time in the last nine years having shared the spoils with Ralph Beckett in one of the other two years in which he wasn’t the outright winner.

Trainer of six winners at the meeting in 2018, Appleby surpassed even that monumental total this year with seven although the race he would have coveted most - and which he still has to win in nine attempts, including with six horses that have started 5/1 or shorter, a number that includes this year’s favourite Notable Speech and second favourite Symbol Of Honour - eluded him once again by some margin.

As it was, the Al Basti Equiworld Dubai July Cup went to No Half Measures, who was surprisingly sent off at 66/1 given the very blurred distinction these days between top sprint handicaps, top-level pattern races and everything in between, not least given a couple of her best efforts last year in big fields in France, including the Prix de l’Abbaye, came in races where she’d been kiboshed by a combination of track position and draw.

Camera position meant manual sectionals were impossible to take for all bar the last race on Saturday, but those available via RaceIQ suggest that the July Cup result was a fair one on the day, and the right call to return the horse to six furlongs for the first time since her listed win at Deauville last August.

A 112 timefigure is a career best, albeit a lowish one historically for the level, though the runner-up Big Mojo (career best 114 timefigure too) would surely be fancied to reverse the form if the pair were to clash again in the Nunthorpe over five next month. Excuses were hard to come by for Notable Speech, who for the third race in succession this year, produced a very tame finishing effort; Symbol of Honour, oddly for one from his yard, appears not to like Newmarket in either of its guises.

Appleby had much better luck in the other Group One race of the meeting, the Tattersalls Falmouth Stakes, where his Cinderella’s Dream got the better of the horse who had beaten her comprehensively in the Duke Of Cambridge at Ascot, Crimson Advocate.

Back at level weights instead of conceding 3lb, as well as perhaps being on the better part of the track, Cinderella’s Dream also proved too good for the Coronation third January who looked to have a fair bit to find on form despite being sent off favourite, though neither her raw timefigure or overall timerating (114 after adding on her sectional upgrade judged on the last two furlongs) is too much to get excited about.

If there was one outstanding performance on the clock across the three days, it came from the increasingly mature Opera Ballo on the opening day in the Listed Sir Henry Cecil Stakes. Regular readers of this column won’t be surprised to learn he posted a 119 at Newmarket, upgraded to 121 when his closing sectionals are factored in, as I wrote back in the spring he had what it takes to develop into a high-class miler having posted a combined 116 at Kempton on just his second start using sectionals much closer to home than those taken manually from three furlongs out, and he may well be capable of a fair bit better still now he’s learning to settle.

Other good timefigures were put up by More Thunder (111) in the Bunbury Cup, yet again making heavy weather of things despite the extra furlong, Scandinavia (108) in the Bahrain Trophy (no surprise he was a major mover in the St Leger market given he beat the runner-up Nightime Dancer by almost as far as Lambourn had beaten him in the Derby) and Remmooz (106) in the John Smith’s Handicap.

Brussels best long-term prospect in July Stakes?

At The Races tipster Hugh Taylor mentioned in one of his columns last week that in terms of finding value in two-year-old markets, in his opinion final time was increasingly less important nowadays than ‘within race’ times and went on to reinforce that point by selecting Zavateri, whose finishing splits had caught his eye at Salisbury on his debut, who duly went on and won the July Stakes at 16/1 (in a 104 timefigure).

That same general point has been made here many times since I wrote about Perfect Power’s effort in the 2021 Richmond Stakes at Goodwood prior to his win in the Prix Morny in what was one of the first Watch And Learn columns, arguing and illustrating that upgrades and sectionals can be potentially very misleading if they are measured from a point well before the race begins in earnest, which, of course, is one of the gravest limitations of a one-point sectional model.

Manually taken sectionals, of course, are very dependent upon helpful camera angles, but Zavateri’s published final individual two furlongs at Salisbury available from RaceIQ, where he quickened right past the field after being dropped out and short of room, paint a very different sectional upgrade from any of those plucked from earlier in the race, enough to have upgraded an ordinary timefigure (69) to something very close to 100 which was not far off the standard set by those with ‘better’ form.

One of those horses was Brussels. His debut win was also achieved with some fast late sectionals, albeit off a much steadier relative earlier pace through the first two furlongs that Zavateri had to contend with at Salisbury, but he ended up running his race much too early on this occasion and with the benefit of this experience behind him it wouldn’t be a surprise if he turns out to be the best of these by some margin.

Similar comments apply to his stable-mate Italy who, in a total mess of a Superlative Stakes that went to Saba Desert in a 102 timefigure, couldn’t build on his debut promise at Leopardstown where he looked to run an outstanding time. One of two horses significantly affected by the antics of the wayward Venetian Lace, he nevertheless still managed a 98 timefigure himself out on the wing of the race and should still make it to the top. The other Group race for juveniles, the Duchess of Cambridge Stakes, went to Albany Stakes winner Venetian Sun in an up-to-standard 102.

Across at Ascot, the Group 2 Summer Mile went to the still improving Never So Brave. The race was a different scenario from the helter skelter Buckingham Palace Stakes which he won with a cracking turn of foot once getting in the clear, but he had no problem with the step up to a mile and switch to a small-field affair, no doubt helped by the good pace (timefigure was 116, 4lb higher than he posted in the BP) and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he climbs higher in the ratings still given how easily he travels through his races.

'He’s always in the right place at the right time. Until he isn’t, of course, and hasn’t been on more than one occasion recently, either.' I can’t remember who that opening quote was attributed to or however many times I saw it rehashed around the time that Colin Keane replaced Kieran Shoemark as Field Of Gold’s rider after the subsequent Irish 2000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes winner had got beaten in the 2000 Guineas, but it seems to me that Keane isn’t finding the transition quite so straightforward as his cheerleaders are imagining, as even crack French jockey Mickael Barzalona has discovered since becoming retained rider for the Aga Khan Studs.

Keane’s learning curve might have been steeper than French-based Barzalona’s given he has had to get himself acquainted with horses from multiple stables in jurisdictions where training styles and racing styles are in some cases vastly different to those he has become accustomed to in Ireland, but recent defeats on Publish (for the Gosdens) at Sandown and more notably long odds-on favourite Sunly, who was set far too much to do and was forced to come wide into the bargain, in the Group 2 Prix de Malleret at Longchamp on Sunday show there is still much to learn about race riding outside his homeland.

Final furlong sectionals at Sandown suggested that Publish was the best horse in the race by at least 6lb, even before taking into account the energy the horse conserved by getting himself boxed in on the rail, while hand-taken sectionals from 600m out at Longchamp (no official ones are available) suggest that Sunly can arguably be rated 7lb better than Ed Walker’s Qilin Queen who beat her by a short neck after dictating a steady pace. I’ve no doubt Qilin Queen’s winning jockey Shoemark, who would have won the Irish 2000 and St James’s Palace on Field of Gold just as easily as Keane did, rightly allowed himself an inward moment of self-satisfaction.

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