Timefigure analysis of Westover’s Irish Derby and Trueshan’s Northumberland Plate

In a week that saw an unprecedented 24,239 majority overturned in a by-election, it was fitting that racing joined the party too with a modern-day record of its own after Trueshan defied an official rating of 120 in the Jenningsbet Northumberland Plate.

There’s no doubt that Trueshan’s performance was noteworthy – after all, only 13 of the 250 horses that have run in handicaps off a mark of 110 or higher in Britain since 2000 have won with only Ocean Tempest (115) and Rainbow High (113), besides Trueshan, managing a victory off a mark higher than 112 (both achieved the feat at Chester, perhaps not uncoincidentally, with Rohaan’s 2021 Wokingham win off 112 being the highest official rating defying performance on a straight track).

Timeform have rated Trueshan 130 on the back of that performance which is a career best – though not by much – and puts him right up there with his great staying rival Stradivarius – not that they meet much nowadays – who was also 130 at his peak but currently languishes on 121.

Notable as his performance was, it shouldn’t be forgotten that handicaps where there is such an imbalance between the official ratings of the runners, as there was in the Northumberland Plate, don’t happen very often, but when they do in races that are contested by experienced and largely-exposed horses the horse engineering the imbalance is nearly always favoured.

The 19lb differential between Trueshan’s 120 official rating and the 101 the next highest-rated horses Red Verdon and Rajinsky raced off is the largest this season in Britain by some way, 5lb greater than its nearest equivalent, the 14lb difference Boom The Groom gave away in a four-runner sprint at Brighton earlier this month (he won at 11/4, for those interested) and is the largest differential I can track down since 2018.

Sure, Trueshan had a big ‘class advantage’ but this isn’t to belittle his performance as these differentials are nearly always found in small-field summer affairs and not the sort of competitive 20-runner Heritage Handicap he landed. A top-class timefigure to go alongside his performance rating would have been the icing on the cake, but as it stands the early pace wasn’t strong enough to prompt that and the 109 Trueshan returned is 11lb shy of the career-best 120 that he posted in the Long Distance Cup on Champions Day in 2020.

By-election result are notorious indicators of voting intentions at future general elections, of course, but Trueshan hasn’t been beaten since finishing sixth in the Northumberland Plate last season and this latest performance (which has seen his official rating rise to 124) suggests his winning run won’t end any time soon unless Kyprios or Mojo Star raise their game significantly.

I have written before about how difficult it can be to return timefigures from the Curragh at most meetings, let alone Irish Derby weekend, and though Friday’s meeting was relatively straightforward, Derby day itself was a tough call and Sunday’s Pretty Polly card was even tougher with heavy showers and occasional torrential rain prompting some major adjustments to bring the timefigures into line with finishing speeds.

I finally settled on a timefigure of 117 for Westover in the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby, which is 3lb higher than he achieved at Epsom but lower than he would have achieved there had he not been stopped in his run before coming home fastest of all. Back in the day, the Irish Derby was traditionally where the Derby winner locked horses with the French Derby winner, but those clashes have become almost non-existent since the Prix de Jockey-Club was shortened to 10 and a half furlongs and with Vadeni held back for the Coral-Eclipse and connections of Desert Crown opting to keep their powder dry for now, Westover looked like he had next to nothing to beat until Oaks winner Tuesday became a late supplementary.

In the event, she didn’t give her running (though will no doubt be back for a fifth tilt at a Classic this season in the Irish Oaks next month) leaving Westover to beat a horse, Piz Badile, who’d finished miles behind him at Epsom and a horse, French Claim, who’d last been seen finishing nearly six lengths behind Derby flop Stone Age at Leopardstown.

All those facts combined make me inclined not to make too much of the biggest winning margin in the race since Soldier Of Fortune in 2007, but I don’t doubt there’s a much bigger time performance in Westover given a searching gallop as that’s very much the scenario that will bring out the best in him, certainly kept to a mile and a half, though I don’t doubt Desert Crown could have beaten Piz Badile by 10 lengths as the Irish Derby was run had he turned up.

Sunday’s Group 1 event, the Alwasmiyah Pretty Polly Stakes, was very difficult to assess from a timefigure perspective with heavy showers before the off adding to already-softening ground but at least a strong gallop ensued leaving me satisfied - if not totally happy - with the 101 awarded the winner La Petite Coco.

The winner hadn’t been seen since beating the dual Classic winner Love in the Blandford Stakes last September, so this first Group One could hardly be said to be unexpected and she’s going to take plenty of beating for the rest of the season.

Also on Sunday’s card was the Group 2 Airlie Stud Stakes for two-year-old fillies, one of two Group races over six furlongs for the youngsters over the final two days. Statuette missed Royal Ascot but did enough in winning in a 99 timefigure to suggest she’d have given her stable-companion Meditate a race in the Albany had she gone, a 9lb upgrade taking her overall time rating to 108 which was enough to see installed as the early favourite for the 2023 1000 Guineas.

Aidan O’Brien was talking in very positive terms about her after the race – nothing new there, mind – but his comments regarding training her at three-quarter capacity to save her for the end of the season given her size made for interesting reading and a step up to seven furlongs will surely improve her on this evidence.

Coventry Stakes and Norfolk Stakes form had been put to the test the previous day in the Gain Railway Stakes but the race ended up going to Shartash who’d won a minor event at Navan on his previous start and had the horse he’d beaten there, Coventry seventh Age Of Kings, behind him again as he edged out Coventry fourth Blackbeard in an overall time rating of 103 after sectionals are incorporated, leading to the conclusion this is decidedly ordinary form, regardless of the underperformance of the unlucky Norfolk horse Crispy Cat.

Beckett might have had a Classic day at the Curragh but he also had a good one at Newmarket too where his juvenile filly Lezoo posted by far the best relative time of the day in the Listed Maureen Brittain Memorial Empress Stakes.

The only ride on the day for Frankie Dettori after his split with the Gosden’s - which attracted far more attention than the winner’s performance - Lezoo looked very good in following up her debut Bath victory with an eased-down success. Manual sectionals are next to impossible to take at Newmarket’s July Course when the runners race down the centre of the track, but those returned by Course Track have her running the last three furlongs fastest (though not the fastest last furlong which third-placed Tagline ran) and would convert into an upgrade in the region of 5lb, making her overall time rating a minimum of 107 given that the timefigure I finally settled on could easily have been higher.

That sort of level sets the standard in the Duchess Of Cambridge Stakes (formerly the Cherry Hinton) which is next on her agenda reportedly.

Timefigures weren’t straightforward to return at Chester on Saturday either, where the newcomer Changeofmind got the better of Windsor Castle seventh Silencer in the opening maiden, breaking the two-year-old course record in the process despite 10 yards being added to the official distance because of rail movements.

On the face of it, Changeofmind’s timefigure could have been in the high 90s but that would have meant advancing the ratings of three youngsters who hadn’t shown much at all first time out significantly and given that there were showers through the card as well - as sand added to the track after race 3 after one of the riders reported his mount slipping - then I was quite happy to proceed cautiously and go with 87, which looks about right judged on the performance of the third horse Erosion Risk at Windsor since.

His victory and that of the 81-rated Caramelised in the opener at Bath last Wednesday are a reminder at this time of year that course records are the by and large the product of very fast conditions rather than anything else.

Two races that attracted the attention of the stewards last week unsurprisingly were those won by Calculus at Beverley and Storm Chaser at Nottingham, contests which Timeform were unable to return sectionals for because the chasing runners were out of camera shot at the sectional point.

Calculus landed a 50/1 shock at Beverley after being allowed to establish a lead that was still roughly 20 lengths with half a mile to run. The stewards report shows that all the beaten riders expressed the view (which was noted) they wouldn’t have finished any closer had they asked their mounts for an effort earlier, but upgrades calculated from the sectionals provided by Course Track refute that collective view totally, suggesting the winner was highly fortunate, and had the stewards had a bit more perception about them the beaten riders, who included some of the most experienced jockeys in the North, would have been handed a ban.

Storm Chaser’s race was an apprentice ‘hands and heels’ handicap in which he was also allowed to go a long way clear. The sectionals available from Course Track show that Storm Chaser came home in finishing speed of 101.5%, so was ridden far more efficiently than the beaten (and inexperienced) riders believed, an opinion lent further credence by the good 76 timefigure he returned, just 1lb less than his form rating.

Given he won by 26 lengths and the runner-up ran the last three furlongs 3 seconds faster than he did, then Storm Chaser must have been around 40 lengths up at the three-furlong marker. Some misjudgement of pace! Hopefully the beaten apprentices will have figured out they weren’t going anywhere near fast enough and the decision to note the explanations given their inexperience was probably the right one in the circumstances.

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