Timefigure analysis from November Handicap day at Doncaster and the recent jumps action

Danielle saves her best for last

The domestic Flat turf season wound to a close at Doncaster on Saturday with several noteworthy performances on the clock.

The first of those was posted by the evergreen veteran Spycatcher in conditions in which he is more effective than most horses at his level, heavy ground, with a 112 timefigure being his best of the season and falling just 2lb shy of his career best which came when he was second to Highfield Princess in the 2022 1895 Duke Of York Clipper at York.

Also recording a 112 was clear form-pick Danielle who won a large-field Listed Gillies Stakes by nine lengths so going one place better than she had the year before when the race had been won by Estrange.

Given her winning distance, I’m not revealing anything particularly insightful when I say she was impressive, but given how she stormed clear at the end of a well-run race and only started her season in August it’s to be hoped she stays in training as a five-year-old.

She might only have won twice so far but she’s easily good enough to win a Group races, perhaps even a Group One restricted to her own sex when getting give in the ground with something like the Prix de l’Opera an obvious target.

The other horse on the card to record a timefigure well into three figures was Golden Mind, whose win in the 22 runner handicap came in at 107 after allowance had been made for the deteriorating state of the surface.

It was the second time this season he’d posted a good figure after humping a big weight into second place over seven furlongs at Epsom on Oaks Day and continued the welcome good end-of-season form of Richard Fahey who hasn’t had the best of seasons with his winner and run-to-form count well below what he has been accustomed to in recent seasons.

Azimpour a horse of great potential

Mention of Spycatcher reminds me that on the same card as his win (for the second successive year) in the Prix de Seine-et-Oise last month, a win that earned him a penalty at Doncaster, there was a fascinating Listed race, the Grand Prix du Nord, that saw a clash between the Derby fourth New Ground and the Prix du Jockey Club fifth Azimpour among others.

Both deserved marking up in those races for overcoming adversity to reach their final positions - New Ground pulled very hard and ran very wide round Tattenham Corner while Azimpour was drawn in the Chantilly car park and ran easily the fastest last 600m according to the tracking data – but while New Ground has gone the wrong way, and put up nothing of a fight when headed here, Azimpour marked his return to action with what I thought was a comfortable win.

At the time of his French Derby fifth, I suggested that he was probably the best middle-distance three-year-old in France and though Daryz had plenty to say on that score come the end of the season, I doubt that there will be much between the pair next season.

Indeed, it’s entirely feasible that Francis Graffard will have the best three middle-distance horses in Europe in his own stable with Azimpour – by Dubawi out of a Galileo mare – still open to untold improvement given he has yet to tackle a mile and a half.

Dough, adhere

It's quite late in the year to witness promising performances by a two-year-old over six furlongs but there was one at Lingfield last week and in a four-runner race too.

Long odds-on favourite Beccadelli set a tall standard having finished fourth at Newmarket on his previous run but the Godolphin inmate had no answer to newcomer Ray Mon Dough who was sent straight to the front and never challenged seriously, quickening clear in the straight and winning by five lengths and fourteen in a 95 timefigure, one that could be elevated to 98 if taking into account his sectional times close to home.

He’s a half-brother to Spain Burg who won the Rockfel Stakes back in 2016 and probably isn’t far off Group standard himself judged on this.

It's unlikely said Beccadelli will have a future with Godolphin but the Newmarket outfit unleashed a potentially smart sort last week in the shape of Abashiri who scored by four lengths on her debut at Kempton.

Most of that four came in the final furlong and though the raw timefigure came in at just 81, sectional upgrades from the two-furlong marker and then the furlong marker suggest another 15lb or 19lb respectively could feasibly be incorporated into her overall timerating.

A Frankel sister to the smart English Rose who won at up to nine furlongs, she’ll surely be seen in a Guineas trial in the spring. Earlier in the week, Kempton had also witnessed two smart performances on the clock (each 108) from Chancellor and Shader, both of whom are trained by the Gosdens. The former had started his season off in the Greenham (sixth) and the King Charles II Stakes (seventh) but a six-month break, gelding operation and wind surgery all combined to prompt a much-improved performance, one that suggests with the addition of a 2lb sectional upgrade from two furlongs out is good enough to get him involved in Group company next year – indeed, he was favourite for the Champagne at Doncaster last year when withdrawn at the start.

Shader is even more lightly raced despite being a year older but like his stablemate also came back from a long absence to win the Listed Floodlit Stakes by nine lengths, so maintaining his unbeaten record on Britain’s all-weather surfaces. He might be one for the Middle East over the winter.

When's the jumps season going to get going?

One of the more unwelcome features of the current domestic jumps season is the number of walkovers, particularly in those races run under the ‘Chasing Excellence’ moniker which for some reason best known to the British Horseracing Authority who implemented the changes replaced many Class 3 limited handicap chases restricted to novices.

The unseasonal dry autumn has been put forward as one major driver of limp numbers - though I’ve barely been able to cut my grass here in the Pennines so wet has it been – but a deeper dive into the numbers suggest a wider malaise at work beyond the framing of the conditions or the patterns of the weather.

Since the start of 2015, there have been five walkovers in hurdles races in Britain with four of those coming on ground that officially had good to firm in it somewhere; in contrast there have been fourteen walkovers in races over fences with ten of those occurring when there wasn’t good to firm somewhere in the official going description.

More worryingly, 11 of those walkovers have come since 2022 suggesting to me the overwhelming reason is not the weather but lack of numbers within the discipline to fill the numbers of races being staged (the dismal figures coming out of this week’s Tattersalls.ie November National Hunt Sale will surely make those vendors who sold at a notable loss think again before putting their mares back into foal). In contrast, in the same period in Ireland, there hasn’t been a single walkover, although there have been three two-runner hurdles and 10 two-runner chases, though the situation there isn’t maybe quite so healthy as those numbers suggest either with seven of the those ten over fences having come in the last two years.

The piece I wrote last week emphasizing the importance of a grasp of Irish point-to-point form when attempting to assess upcoming races under Rules or analysing those just gone was generally well received and I’ll try and drop in a few names or races that will be worth keeping an eye on as the season progresses.

One interesting horse who was declared to run at the weekend at Aintree but ended up not doing so was Mossy Fen Coolio who was given a self-certificate after apparently being off his feed. The rating I thought he was worth after his win at Tallow in February was one of the highest in the discipline all last season and the horse he beat by twenty-five lengths that day in an attritional contest in which only two finished, Ponte Vedra, won a maiden on his first appearance since at Peppards Castle this October. Irish point recruits can get away with two miles in their opening starts under Rules over here where the depth of competition is shallower than in Ireland, but I’d always prefer to see a horse make his debut over two and a half miles, not least since some of the Irish point courses such as Farmaclaffey and Loughanmore are notably stiff tests.

As it was, low sun, seemingly an ever-present feature at Aintree in November, meant that timefigures weren’t the easiest to return with the two flights in the straight missed out in both the Pertemps Qualifier, in which a miserable seven went to post, and the concluding handicap hurdle in which just five hurdles were jumped.

Even so, nothing impressed greatly on time it has to be said, with the honours shared by the winner of said handicap hurdle Bubble Dubi and Mambonumberfive, both of whom clocked a 127. Interestingly, Mambonumberfive became the second four-year-old this autumn (from just five starters) to win a handicap chase in Britain, an opening mark of 128 not enough to stop him making a winning start over fences unsurprisingly given he’d won the Grade 2 Adonis at Kempton in February and ended his career over hurdles with a run behind Murcia in the Grade 1 juvenile hurdle here in April.

Things weren’t much better down at Wincanton’s usually well-contested Badger Beers meeting where the meeting looked an alcohol-free version of those held in years gone by; none of the seven races attracted more than eight runners and the best winning timefigure on show was the 129 posted by Blueking D’Oroux in the Rising Stars Novices’ Chase on a day Rubaud could hardly have looked a less elite winner of the Elite Hurdle had he tried, labouring to an unimpressive win in a lowly 112.

Numbers had been better at Exeter the previous day where Thistle Ask won the Haldon Gold Cup from out of the handicap in a 141 timefigure, a very lowly number for a race with an illustrious history as this one has, bettering by 3lb the figure achieved by the same yards’ Doyen Quest in the Future Stars Silver Bowl Novices’ Chase.

Had it not been for the victory of last season’s Irish Grand National winner Haiti Couleurs in yet another Pertemps Qualifier (the third in the space of five days) you could be forgiven the new jumps season is still some way off revving into gear. Maybe it will finally at the Paddy Power meeting Cheltenham this weekend.

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