Timefigure analysis: Graeme North on Constitution Hill and Giant Sequoia

Back in February, after a sparkling winning debut on the Flat, I wrote in this column about the potential former champion hurdler Constitution Hill might still possess as a racehorse on the level and came to the conclusion that on the evidence of that one run, he was Group class considering his overall time as well as sectional times pointed towards a figure of 107 on the clock, a rating within 7lb of what has been required to win a dozen or so Group races contested by older horses in Britain and Ireland this year.

At the time Constitution Hill had a unique status, being the only horse in training simultaneously to have a ‘large P’, denoting the likelihood of significant improvement, on his Flat rating and an ‘x’, denoting severe jumping issues, on his National Hunt one.

Three Flat runs later, Constitution Hill is rated 106 and has shown he belongs in Group company but it’s increasingly evident he’s not good enough to win at that level and after his fifth place in the Group 2 Premio Del Jockey Club at Milan on Sunday he no longer has even a small p attached to his Flat rating.

His trainer Nicky Henderson is reportedly not giving up on his Flat dream but I can break the bad news to him that if he believes he can get another Group run into him in France before the end of the year on properly soft ground as reportedly he wants to, he can’t as there are only three more Group events in their programme book, two of which are restricted to two-year-olds and the other only open to fillies and mares.

He could aim him for a Listed event at Fontainebleau over a mile-and-a-quarter towards the end of November, but that’s his only viable option and a trip there to race at a lower level seems about as likely as going back over hurdles.

Mention of sparkling winning debuts brings me to Entrust who is the first foal of the top-class Enable who readers are unlikely to need reminding won two Arcs and finished second in another besides winning three King Georges at Ascot, to hit the racecourse.

By Dubawi and trained by the Gosdens who haven’t been prolific with their two-year-old debutants this year, Entrust tanked through the heavy ground at Doncaster in what was all to all intents and purposes a newcomers race, made headway on the bridle and showed a smart turn of foot to win by almost three lengths.

An 89 timefigure is a decent one for a newcomer, but a 10lb sectional upgrade across the last three furlongs, 7lb higher than the Godolphin pair who followed him home earned, takes him to 99 which is what he has been rated (together with a large P) by Timeform.

Enable made a winning debut herself late in her two-year-old season on her way to winning two Classics (as well as a King George and Arc) in her three-year-old career and a Classic campaign surely beckons for Entrust.

Doncaster’s meeting usually brings down the curtain on the domestic Group programme though following Newbury’s abandonment the Horris Hill and the St Simon will be the final pattern races run this year having been rescheduled to Newmarket this weekend.

The feature race, one with a decent record of identifying horses who go onto become Classic winners, is the William Hill Futurity, a race that began in 1961 as the Timeform Gold Cup and has been won by such top-class horses as Reference Point, High Chapparal, Camelot and Auguste Rodin.

Those last three horses were trained by Aidan O’Brien, of course, a trainer who by my reckoning has provided 60 of the 225 in the race since 2000 or just slightly more than one in every four. He was mob handed again in the latest renewal, running three, and it was his longest-priced runner, Giant Sequoia, who prevailed, and in some style too, giving his trainer his fourth win in the race in the last six years and putting himself not only towards the top of the juvenile rankings but the Derby betting too, unsurprisingly too in what doesn’t look a deep year remembering that Auguste Rodin won by a similar margin in 2022 before going on to win the Derby and Irish Derby.

With Frankel as his sire and Pink Dogwood, a Camelot mare who was second to Anapurna in the 2019 Oaks and romped home by seven lengths on her only start on heavy ground, as his dam Giant Sequoia will have no trouble staying a mile-and-a -half, but he’s not short of speed as his 11.58 penultimate furlong showed, just 0.02 seconds slower than stable-companion Bengal Tiger recorded for the same section in the listed Prospect Stakes over six furlongs half an hour later.

A winning time of 1.40.3 seconds translates into a 102 timefigure, boosted to 119 on the back of a sectional upgrade measured across the last three furlongs which is well up to standard so boding well for his future prospects (Auguste Rodin got a 10lb boost to a 105 timefigure when winning the race, though that was calculated from the two-furlong marker at a time a slightly different upgrade methodology was in use).

For what it’s worth, I was impressed, more so than by Drumbeat at Saint-Cloud on Sunday, and it was easy to see why he was sent off 4/9 for his debut at the Curragh in June in a maiden that had been won the previous year by 2025 Futurity winner Hotazhell. Runner-up Gran Dia ran very well on just his second start to take second, emerging with a 12lb upgrade on 95 timefigure, giving himself an overall timerating of 107, while Giant Sequoia’s stable-companion Noble Exhibit faded into third after taking up the running.

The race Drumbeat won over the weekend was the Criterium de Saint-Cloud, a Group 1 for two-year-olds over a mile-and-a-quarter or thereabouts (2000 metres officially) and a race O’Brien has had almost as much success in recently as the Futurity, winning it in 2023 with Los Angeles and 2025 with Pierre Bonnard.

On ground that was riding a fair bit quicker than the official description – no surprise there – Drumbeat passed the post in 2.07.21, around a second quicker than Pierre Bonnard, and is nominally the fastest time in the race since its inception, though comparisons with earlier years are inappropriate at Saint-Cloud more than anywhere else in France given the rail is often out a very long way and the runners are directed very wide towards the stands rail.

I was left with the impression that the 2025 renewal wasn’t a great one, but Pierre Bonnard finished third in the Irish Derby this year (though still hasn’t won) and runner-up A Boy Named Susie finished fourth in the French Derby, so am hesitant to play down Drumbeat’s prospects too much but runner-up Shakespeare had been beaten eight lengths by subsequent Dewhurst winner Darkness Falls in the Golden Fleece Stakes and five lengths by Noble Exhibit when wearing first-time cheekpieces in the Beresford Stakes, a race in which Drumbeat had himself finished third, while Criterium fourth Royal Acclamation had taken four runs to get off the mark and had only four rivals to beat when doing so.

That said, Drumbeat ran the second fastest last 600m of all the six Listed or Group winners on the afternoon, and the third fastest last 200m, and has improved with every run, this a 2lb better effort according to Timeform than his win in the Zetland Stakes. Whether he stays as well as Los Angeles and Pierre Bonnard remains to be seen, however, given his dam was a Grade 1-winning sprinter in South Africa.

The other Group 1 contest for two-year-olds, the Criterium International, produced a slower finish and form that can probably be questioned too with Alfred Wallace not beaten far in fourth.

Recent winners of this contest haven’t made much of a name for themselves subsequently, and the race went to the cheaply bought Master Man who’d last been seen at the Arc meeting, not in the Group races but in the Arqana Sales race where he dominated a large but very limited field from the front.

Employing similar tactics here, he held on by half-a-length from the Aidan O’Brien pair Capability Brown and Aix La Chapelle (won the maiden that Giant Sequoia had made his debut in) but he ran the last 200m 0.33 seconds slower than Drumbeat and slower even than Alfred Wallace who appeared to show somewhere in the region of 10lb improvement albeit having got closer to Aix La Chapelle than when the pair were fifth and ninth respectively behind crack French filly Amusingly in the Jean-Luc Lagardere.

There isn’t much to report from the other races on the Saint-Cloud card. Queenstown won the Group 1 Prix Royal-Oak from the front just eight days after his Long Distance Cup second at Ascot, staying on too strongly for Consent who ran her best race of the year as the pair came clear.

Miss Justice was another British/Irish winner in the opening Prix de Flore, overcoming some trouble in running in a messy race to score readily and follow up her win here earlier in the month, while the Prix Perth went to the six-year-old Half Half who has ended the campaign in great heart, easily disposing of William Haggas’ Crown Of Oaks in the fastest last 600m of the day while Eleganz provided the home contingent with a win in the other Group race, the Prix Belle De Nuit.

Jack Garrity Leicester ban puzzled me

It’s not often that sectional times get a mention in a stewards enquiry, least of all after a 0-55 handicap on heavy ground, but they did at Leicester on Monday when Jack Garrity was suspended for ten days after allowing his mount Red Derek to come home strongly from a ‘most unpromising position’ as the stewards saw it to finish a never-nearer third, running the fastest furlong splits for each of the final three furlongs.

It seemed to me the stewards mistook the distinction between a poorly judged ride and an intentionally ill-judged ride. Much like overall race times, sectional times are contextual and compared to the pars Timeform employ in calculating upgrades for each of the last three furlongs there over a mile-and-a-quarter Red Derek ran a more efficient race than any of his rivals.

Had he not been so far back turning in, he would have finished a good bit closer for sure, but that’s not the same as saying the ten-year-old, who was looking for his first win in four years and to give his small stable only their fourth win of the year, was set too much to do deliberately - cheating in other words - and if we start banning riders on dubious interpretation of sectional timing evidence then we are heading down a very rocky path indeed.

More from Graeme North

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• What did Darkness Falls achieve on the clock?
• Daryz clearly the best in the Arc
• Blanco has ability to go higher
• Dazzling Goddess impresses on the clock
• Ascot likely to be bigger test for Almeraq
• Zavateri bang in QEII mix
• Item has more to offer up in trip
• Coppull not truly tested at seven
• Stars shine bright at Goodwood

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