Graeme North's timefigure analysis from Royal Ascot

Last week’s meeting at Royal Ascot might have been a personal disappointment on the tipping front, but losses aside it was one of the best in recent memory from an entertainment perspective and with so much to cover I’ll crack on and highlight the chief performances on the clock by age group, starting with the youngsters.

The headline time performance of the week (112) among that cohort came from Dramatised in the Queen Mary Stakes. Indeed, it was the joint-twelfth best winning timefigure in any juvenile race at Royal Ascot since 2000 and the joint-fifth best in the Queen Mary in the same period albeit some way off the figures recorded by Wesley Ward’s trio of Lady Aurelia, Jealous Again and Acapulco as well as subsequent 1000 Guineas winner Attraction. There will no doubt be a temptation to step Dramatised up to six furlongs and keep her against her own sex, but the Nunthorpe screams out to me as the race to target given she would receive a hefty and still overly-generous weight-for-age allowance.

Acapulco got beaten in the race, of course, which possibly isn’t a good omen for her participation, but the filly that beat her, Mecca’s Angel, was just making a name for herself and put up the best performance in the race since Dayjur in 1990 before going on to win the race again the following year.

If Dramatised’s performance was the best, the most remarkable in the other two-year-old races at Ascot surely came from the newcomer Holloway Boy who caused a surprise (although not, apparently, to his trainer’s head lad who had tweeted earlier to say he was the best horse he’d ever ridden) in the Chesham Stakes first time out at odds of 40/1. Debut winners at Royal Ascot as recently as the eighties and nineties weren’t uncommon when some of the races didn’t have the same status they do today (though nothing first time out for me can match Chief Singer who won the Coventry by four lengths) but since 2000 getting a horse placed let alone win has proved near impossible.

By my calculations, Holloway Boy was the 57th to try and the first to win in that period and only the fourth to reach the first three. One of that trio was Kingsgate Native who later won the Nunthorpe (as a two-year-old) and the Golden Jubilee, but the other two who managed the feat (Leopard Spot and Pegasus Again) did it in the Chesham and never fulfilled that initial promise. A 101 timefigure is well down the list of Chesham winning figures in recent years, but Timeform thought him a good sort physically and in coming from last to first in a well-run race he ran the last furlong much faster than any of his opponents according to the TPD sectionals.

Bradsell’s 107 Coventry figure was also some way down the list of best figures recorded in the race this century. He looked the winner on merit, his burst in the penultimate furlong enabling him to get first run on Persian Force who came home faster according to TPD sectionals, but whether he can stay ahead of the pack at six furlongs for the remainder of the season I’m not sure.

Little Big Bear ran almost exactly a second slower in the Windsor Castle than Dramatised managed in the Queen Mary earlier in the afternoon, albeit on a different part of the track, returning a timefigure of 89. His stable-companion Meditate landed the Albany later in the week under a controlled front-running ride in another lowly timefigure, 85, though it wasn’t as low as the The Ridlers’ 75 in a very unsatisfactory Norfolk Stakes where the (lack of) quality of stewardship was a bigger talking point than the merit of the winner.

Pride of place among the three-year-olds on the clock went to Inspiral in the Coronation Stakes, a 116 timefigure bettering anything she achieved as a youngster by some margin even before the 10lb Timeform upgrade she managed in quickening through from the rear is added on. The top two-year-old filly last year, Inspiral looks even more dominant his time around and even though there may have been excuses on account of the ground for the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches winner Mangoustine, there seemed none on behalf of 1000 Guineas winner Cachet or last year’s Cheveley Park winner and beaten Guineas favourite Tenebrism.

A combined time rating of 126 would make a meeting between her and either Coroebus or Native Trail a fascinating contest, not least if Maljoom were to join the party as well. Coroebus didn’t have to improve upon his 2000 Guineas timefigure in landing the St James’s Palace Stakes in an ordinary 112 but whether he would confirm placings next time with fourth home Maljoom has to be open to doubt. Were the race to be run again, of course, it’s unlikely Lusail would be allowed to dominate so easily in front, but in flying home from a poor position (much as he had in the German 2000 Guineas, which he ended up pulling out of the fire) Maljoom did more than enough to suggest that, given a fair crack of the whip, he’d have won a couple of lengths at least.

Sectional upgrades from three furlongs out (as Timeform use at Ascot on the round course) are more often than not very helpful in assisting the calculation of final timefigures, but final-furlong finishing bursts such as those Maljoom showed at Ascot and Perfect Power displayed in the Richmond at Goodwood last year are never going to be fully visible in finishing speeds based on calculations long before the burst initialised. Using established methodology, Maljoom earned a 6lb upgrade from three furlongs out but, using the closing sectionals TPD provided, his upgrade rises to ballpark figures of 11lb from two furlongs out and 13lb from one furlong out (Coroebus had 3lb, 7lb and 5lb from the same points).

I say ballpark instead of definitive because finishing pars from two furlongs out and a furlong out have been estimated, and also there has been no adjustment, certainly for the final-furlong figure, to reflect the increasing disparity away from the ‘ideal’ relationship between the sectional distance and the overall race distance that forms part of Timeform’s timefigure upgrade calculation over jumps. Technicalities aside, what this boils down to is that using the 13lb final furlong upgrade compared to the 5lb accredited to Coroebus, then Maljoom ‘achieved’ 8lb more than Coroebus. I’d have him clear favourite over Coroebus should the pair clash again, though there would be little on time between him and Inspiral.

The other three-year-old pattern races for three-year-olds threw up some ordinary figures. Derby fifth Changingoftheguard scrambled home from Derby eleventh Grand Alliance in the King Edward VII Stakes in a 106 timefigure while Noble Truth managed the same figure in what looked a substandard Jersey. Magical Lagoon ran to 105 when winning a six-runner Ribblesdale that lacked an Oaks representative and Perfect Power managed only 101 when landing the Commonwealth Cup.

Better timefigures came in the handicaps from Heredia (115) in the Sandringham, Missed The Cut (110) in the Golden Gates and Thesis (105) in the Britannia. Heredia and Sandringham runner-up Zanbaq both look likely to play a prominent role in fillies' Group races going forward at around a mile, while Missed The Cut’s third wide-margin demolition job in a row in what ought to have been a competitive handicap suggests he too has pattern-race pretensions next time, either here or abroad. There’s little doubt that Thesis deserved to win a race finally, but he was fortunate to edge out Saga. Using the same methodology that we used to generate final-furlong upgrades for Maljoom, and once again using TPD sectionals (hand-taken ones are very difficult to obtain on Ascot’s straight course), then Saga should have won by a couple of lengths or so. Second to Coroebus in a novice at Newmarket last year, Saga is clearly a Group horse himself and will show himself to be one in time if the blinkers and tongue strap combination continue to work.

It’s possible in the Britannia that Saga’s jockey Dettori might still have been mulling over his ‘unlucky’ - depending upon your point of view - defeat on Stradivarius in the Gold Cup 35 minutes previously. Stradivarius had to pull wide for sure but the TPD sectionals seem to confirm that he wasn’t obviously unlucky with the winner Kyprios running each of the last three furlongs faster than Stradivarius (as well as the previous three furlongs) with the biggest differential in those times coming in the final furlong. Perhaps the criticism from the trainer towards the rider was something of a hangover from the Oaks, but whatever the background the Gold Cup (82) figured very low on the older-horse Group races assessed on timefigures with only the Princes Of Wales’s Stakes won by State Of Rest (68) returning a lower timefigure.

The best timefigures of the week among the older horses were returned by Nature Strip (129) in the King’s Stand and Baeeed (126) in the Queen Anne on the best day’s racing of the week. Nature Strip became the fourth Australian winner of the King’s Stand this century following Choisir, Takeover Target and Scenic Blast and ran faster than all of them with his 129 timefigure equalling those posted in the race by Miss Andretti in 2007 and Blue Point in 2018. Using the same methodology as discussed above, Nature Strip arguably deserves a very marginal upgrade, but sectionals taken from the conventional three-furlongs marker give Baaeed another 9lb on top of his 126, making him 135 on overall time ratings which is pretty much what he is rated on form.

Dubawi’s sons Dubai Future and Naval Crown posted 121 and 120 respectively in the Wolferton and the Platinum Jubilee, while globetrotter Broome wasn’t far off his career-high 122 with a 116 in a Hardwicke in which the returning dual Classic winner Hurricane Lane looked a bit rusty on ground faster than he is used to.

Rohaan and Candleford managed the best figures in the handicaps. Rohaan bounced back to his 2021 best to record back-to-back triumphs in the Wokingham, rattling home in a 12-second final furlong that was a couple of lengths faster than any of his rivals managed with his meeting-leading rider Ryan Moore determined to bag the rail. The progressive Candleford will surely prove at least as good in time after scattering his Duke Of Edinburgh rivals by six lengths.

More from Sporting Life

• Royal Ascot tips
• Racecards
• Fast results
• Full results and free video replays
• Horse racing news
• Horse racing tips
• Horse racing features
• Download our free iOS and Android app
• Football and other sports tips
• Podcasts and video content

Safer gambling

We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.

If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.

Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.