Check out the latest timefigure analysis

Cheltenham Festival timefigure analysis on Willie Mullins winners, Lulamba and Haiti Couleurs

By Graeme North

Horse Racing

Tue February 10, 2026 · 6h ago

Timeform's Graeme North reviews the latest action in England and Ireland from a timefigure perspective with one eye on the Cheltenham Festival.

Be wary of Outlaw form

There isn’t as much to go at as usual this week given the racing programme was curtailed by the sort of relentlessly miserable tupperware sky weather that seems to have become the winter norm these last few years, but most of the important meetings survived starting with Fairyhouse last Tuesday where the feature event was the Betvictor Solerina Mares Novice Hurdle, a race that in the last three years has been won by subsequent Grade 1 winners Aurora Vega, Jade de Grugy and Ashroe Diamond.

On the face of it that statistic bodes well for its latest winner, Oldschool Outlaw, the mare who beat last year’s Champion Bumper winner Bambino Fever on her hurdling debut back at Naas in December and whose price for the Mares’ Novice Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival collapsed to 7/2 after this latest win, but from a timefigure perspective I wonder whether her claims are quite so strong as it seems.

A 121 at Naas in December was dandy enough, but this win stopped the clock at a lowly 73 which no amount of sectional massaging can upgrade significantly. Sure she ran the fastest last mile, last half mile and last two furlongs on the day over hurdles but much of that was to do with the fact they’d crawled to the mile marker with only the subsequent two-and-a-half mile maiden hurdle slower per furlong and even the 109-rated handicapper Themanintheanorak managed to run the next four furlongs getting on for seven lengths faster than she did.

Exactly what she achieved is muddied further by the runner-up Place De La Nation having run nowhere near the form in two wins this season as she did when fifth in last year’s Triumph Hurdle and didn’t again here; throw in the possibility that her improvement too this season has all been on very heavy ground (she was well held in Aintree’s Mares bumper last spring on good ground) and she looks a bit short in the market to me for a race in which I still think Future Prospect, whose sectionals in her win at Naas last month compare very favourably to those recorded by I’ll Sort That in the Grade 1 Ballymore Novice Hurdle the same afternoon, still seems under the radar.

Oldschool Outlaw’s sire Walk In The Park also had another promising novice win the same afternoon in the shape of Talk To The Man at Taunton. Like Oldschool Outlaw, he’s clearly improved for an obstacle having been second twice last season in bumpers, and a 128 timefigure on his hurdling debut will give his trainer Paul Nicholls some encouragement that he’s got another potentially good one on his hands.

Punchestown’s Wednesday card looked potentially full of clues going forward but ended up a disappointing one on the clock.

Willie Mullins had the first winner of the day over hurdles, Too Bossy For Us, who’d last been seen in the Irish Cesarewitch, but his stablemate and runner-up Mino Des Mottes wouldn’t be a match for any novice hurdler with an eye on Cheltenham and 57 timefigure rather suggests the race didn’t develop until late on, Too Bossy For Us (in a first-time tongue tie) settling it in a matter of strides and running the fastest last two furlongs of any winner on the card by some considerable margin.

Mullins was also responsible for the more interesting of the other two maiden winners, Fillyoureye. She’d only shown useful form previously but finally looked the out-and-out stayer she’d suggested she might be earlier in her career, chasing a pace that per furlong was much stronger than any of the hurdle races on the card and then running through the next half mile faster than anything else too despite three of the races that preceded hers on heavy ground having been at much shorter distances. She can’t have been right when beaten at odds on at Cork at the start of the year but there’s a chance four omitted flights makes her look a bit better on the clock than in reality.

Mullins was also on the scoresheet twice at Thurles on Thursday with beginner chase winner Salvator Mundi and maiden hurdle winner Laurets D’Estruval. Both started long odds on and won by wide distances, though Salvator Mundi’s winning time was barely faster than 102-rated Quornofamonday over the same trip half an hour later for all allowance has to be made for his winning hard held. Laurets D’Estruval had been beaten on his Irish debut at Limerick over Christmas by a horse since well held at the Dublin Racing Festival, but he skipped through the Thurles much faster than the other admittedly-modest winners on the day and looks destined for better things.

https://ads.skybet.com/redirect.aspx?pid=17678472&lpid=16&bid=1487

Lots to like about Lulamba

The quality of the action moved up a couple notches at the weekend when Newbury staged its Denman Chase meeting and Warwick the Kingmaker Chase. Since Timeform started returning timefigures over jumps, the Denman Chase has regularly thrown up performances of 155 or more – notably in 2018 when Native River posted a 165 and in 2022 when Eldorado Allen managed 163 - but this year it was the Game Spirit’s turn to host the clock leader as Arkle favourite Lulamba stretched his unbeaten run over fences to three when winning his Cheltenham prep by six and a half lengths in a 162 timefigure, the highest in the race after Sceau Royal’s 156 in 2021.

It’s fair to say he didn’t impress everyone, not least with his chasing technique with some arguing on social media that faster conditions at Cheltenham might expose a still somewhat airy approach, but that view ignores the 157 timefigure he posted in the Henry VIII on much faster ground at Sandown where the fences come up thick and fast and whose race distance was almost a furlong shorter than he raced at here and this win if nothing else proved he’s already good enough to take care readily of best of the open chasers not quite good enough for the Champion Chase.

The Denman Chase, also sponsored by William Hill, attracted its smallest field since 2018, just four, but reverted to type after several untypical years in that it was won by a strong-travelling front-runner who jumped well and found plenty. That horse this year was Haiti Couleurs who really only had one serious opponent to overcome, L’Homme Presse, who was content to track the pace this time instead of setting it slowly as he did in the Cotswold Chase last time, but once again L’Homme Presse found himself readily left behind once the race developed into a test of finishing speed, Haiti Couleurs drawing clear approaching the last to score with a bit in hand in a very ordinary 121 timefigure while running the last furlong around six lengths faster than Lulamba.

Whether he’s good enough to make the frame in the Gold Cup remains to be seen – nothing he’s achieved on time says he will - but he’s still improving having been something of a late starter (had his first race under Rules in December 2023 and has still just had just eight races over fences) and he’ll line up with a more progressive profile than most.

Another horse who won on the card and also has a very upward profile is Sober Glory, who took the opening hurdle by 27 lengths from Kadastral. As ever when significant rain falls during the meeting, however, particularly over jumps, time comparisons between races or standard times is seldom straightforward and though Sober Glory scored in a time around three seconds faster than the winner of the feature handicap over hurdles, Tutti Quanti (who incidentally had won Sober Glory’s race the year before) ground deterioration guided by sectional upgrades suggest that Tutti Quanti’s time was in fact the more meritorious, credited at 150 in comparison to Sober Glory’s 137 in a race that developed ideally for the winner out of the kickback and maybe not for those behind him.

In the event, just three went to post in the Kingmaker and with hitherto progressive Mambonumberfive not giving his running at a track that looked too sharp for him at two miles, odds-on Steel Ally was left with just Mirabad, 9lb his inferior on Timeform ratings heading into the race, to beat. Given he was conceding 5lb, a 10-length beating of Mirabad (who’d finished seven lengths behind Mambonumberfive when conceding that horse 6lb in the Wayward Lad at Kempton at Christmas) comes out at 157 on the clock, which puts him near the head of the novice chasing division at around two miles.

Other important races on the card, the Jane Seymour Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle and the Warwick Mares’ Hurdle were won by Kingston Queen (111) and Hollygrove Cha Cha in timefigures of 111 and 127 respectively; the former had been trounced 15 lengths by Old Park Star when last seen at Cheltenham in December.

Smart timefigures were thin on the ground at Naas’ Saturday meeting when unusually the best of the day (132) was put up in the hunter chase by Panda Boy. That’s 8lb lower than the 140 he posted in the Leinster National last year when a good third off an Irish handicap mark of 138 and that level clearly makes him a leading candidate for the Hunter Chase at Cheltenham for all his jumping has never been his strongest suit.

Dinoblue made easy work of a simple task in the Listed Opera Hat Mares Chase (timefigure just 87) but much better figures were put up by Highland Crystal (128) in the rated hurdle and Jalon D’Oudairies (127) in the maiden hurdle. The rated hurdle has been a valuable pointers in recent years to the Fred Winter, having supplied four of the last seven winners, and at least half the field looked to be ridden with an eye on that race again with runner-up Saratoga perhaps significantly running the fastest last mile over hurdles all afternoon despite the strong early pace.

Timefigures were also on the low side at Navan on Sunday; Boyne Hurdle winner Staffordshire Knot posted a 90 and didn’t even manage to run the last two furlongs faster than the Listed novice winner Zanoosh whose race was run at a similarly steady early pace, while Ten Up winner Oscars Brother recorded 130 when beating his owner’s The Wallpark by six lengths in a contest that bore a close similarity to the rated hurdle at Naas the previous day.