Timefigure analysis on Festival Trials Day ahead of Cheltenham

Trials Day on trial

Trials Day - the final day of racing at Cheltenham before the Festival in March. A day of trials and hopefully a day of clues too, domestically at least, if not final clues given there are still a dozen or so potentially significant Graded race pointers on the horizon such as the Scilly Isles Novices’ Chase, Game Spirit Chase, Denman Chase and Adonis Hurdle.

With the Festival in mind I’ll get around to the predictive power of the competing Dublin Racing Festival in my final column next week before an enforced absence of up to several weeks while I undergo a hip replacement, but for now let’s look at how the protagonists from the last ten runnings of Cheltenham Trials Day (there was no meeting in 2021, so I’ve started from 2014) have fared at the Festival.

For all there will have been horses who finished outside the first two at some of those meetings and will have gone on to run well or even succeed at Cheltenham – and there was one obvious eyecatcher this year who will have gone into many notebooks for either the Ultima or Grand National, Iroko, whose official mark remained unchanged at 152 after the latest round of updates – I’ve restricted my research to those who finished either first or second.

Mindful that Trials Day hasn’t always scheduled the same races – it has hosted the previously abandoned Clarence House Chase on several occasions, for example – the results at the Festival have been remarkably good with at least one winner every year in the period under review apart from 2022 when an unusually large number of first-two finishers bypassed the Festival.

In all, 13 of the horses that have finished in the first two on Trials Day have gone on to win at the Festival (12%) with the same number finishing second and a further eleven finishing third, giving a slightly better than one in three (34%) finish in the top three. For all that number has dropped off a little in the last three years as the Dublin Festival has taken hold – just two winners and six placed horses, equating to a 28% top three finish - the figures still suggest the protagonists this year need taking seriously at the Festival whatever the DRF might throw up next weekend.

Constitution Hill is the obvious one from Saturday for March, but I’ll start this week’s review with the race that has been the most predictive so far as the Festival has been concerned, the Timeform Novices’ Handicap Chase whose first two in the last ten running’s has produced a remarkable four Festival winners as well as two seconds and a third and is likely to be no less significant this year given the novice handicap chase is back on the programme for the first time since 2020.

Timefigures for the Timeform

It can’t be said the Timeform Novices’ Handicap Chase was a race to watch in the early years of the time period under review - it took until 2018 for one of the first two to go onto success at the Festival - but since then Mister Whitaker in 2018, Simply The Betts and Imperial Aura in 2020 and Stage Star in 2023 have all gone to on to success with Stage Star’s victory coming not in a handicap but in the now-displaced Turners which his stable-mate Ginny’s Destiny went close to repeating the feat in 2024.

Ginny’s Destiny recorded the best timefigure among that quintet, 156, 2lb ahead of Imperial Aura on 154 and Stage Star on 149 but a modest timefigure hasn’t been a bar to Festival success as Simply The Betts (129) showed which will be welcome news to the connections of the latest winner, Jagwar, who returned 137, the second lowest figure since 2018, but managed that without being seen to anything like the advantage his physically much less-imposing stablemate and runner-up Billytherealbigred secured jumping unhindered in front.

Timeform’s sectional upgrades have him worth another 10lb above that, taking his overall time rating to a minimum of 147 which ties in tidily enough with the earlier form lines with Jinkgo Blue (to whom he’d have finished second at Uttoxeter but for losing his footing after jumping the last) and Bangor where ran down Lowry’s Bar, second since to Jingko Blue in a listed chase at Windsor, with ease on the short run-in after the last.

Mister Whittaker, Imperial Aura and Simply The Betts all defied rises in their official marks of between 7lb and 9lb at Cheltenham and a 7lb rise, at the lower end of recent winners, seems unlikely to stop Jagwar, who looks as strapping a novice chaser as I’ve seen all season, going close or winning again next time.

Dock a triumph on the clock

The other two races on the Trials card that have thrown up two Festival winners according to the rules I’ve defined are the JCB Triumph Hurdle Trial and the Cleeve Hurdle. The Triumph Trial’s two winners have come from 13 runners compared with 16 from the Cleeve, and there’s no arguing that the latest winner East India Dock won as easily as Sir Gino did last season when his own half-brother Burdett Road was second, if not by quite as far as Fakir d’Oudairies managed in 2019.

That said, East India Dock’s 146 timefigure is the best in the race since Timeform started returning timefigures over jumps, 2lb higher than Fakir d’Oudairies who ended up running in the Supreme rather than the Triumph, finishing fourth behind Klassical Dream. East India Dock’s win wasn’t a surprise – he started 2/1 on – but the fact that he beat the same two horses who finished behind him in another JCB sponsored trial at Cheltenham in December suggests strongly to me that whatever interpretation you put on this performance on the clock (or even performance ratings) there isn’t much if any strength to the current crop of exposed British juveniles.

Lulamba scored very tidily at Ascot yet might find his position at the head of the market coming under much more pressure next weekend at Leopardstown, possibly from Hello Neighbour, a horse I’m particularly sweet on, and if not him then something else.

The Cleeve Hurdle, sponsored this year by Betfair, went to subsequent World Hurdle winner Thistlecrack in 2016 and Stayers’ Hurdle (same race) winner Paisley Park in 2019 but hasn’t fared anywhere near as well since with only two of the first two since 2020 (one of whom was Paisley Park) managing to go on and reach a place in the Stayers’.

It seems highly unlikely this year’s result will buck that recent trend with handicapper Gowel Road getting the better of another of similar ilk in Monmiral in a very modest 116 timefigure in a contest in which one-time Stayers candidate Strong Leader ran for the second race in succession as if he has a physical issue with a hasty breathing operation after his Ascot flop surely more of a consideration than an inability to act on the course and Crambo turned in yet another miserable effort.

Career best timefigures of 140 and 142 respectively for Gowel Road and Monmiral over hurdles suggest neither is up to getting involved in the Stayers’, for all the latter has a higher figure (146) over fences.

Rest of Cheltenham

All the other races on the Trials card have pointed the way to one subsequent Festival winner apart from the Classic Hurdle which might be winless but has at least identified five horses who went on to finish second or third.

The Cotswold Chase has been a modest pointer to events at the Festival overall for all Frodon won it in 2019 before landing the Ryanair and has been even less so since with none of the first two in any of the last three years getting placed at Cheltenham.

The latest winner L’Homme Presse might have run well in last year’s Gold Cup but it’s hard to think this year’s renewal will be any more prophetic with Stage Star, who hasn’t been near his best since winning the 2023 Paddy Power Gold Cup Handicap off an official mark of 155, seemingly running as well as ever off the back of an ordinary pace (winning timefigure just 133) that allowed him to see out the trip well on his first shot at it, and the veteran Delta Work supposedly a tenderly-handled fourth.

In Lossiemouth’s absence, Constitution Hill made the most of a simple task in the Unibet Hurdle, most of his rivals ridden wide and with some caution in a very steadily-run race that returned a timefigure of just 87, and is presumably the one to beat still in the Champion Hurdle.

Unfortunately, those who had the card’s four odds-on favourites in an accumulator came unstuck when Potters Charm lost his unbeaten record in the concluding Grade 2 novice hurdle.

His presence was something of a surprise given that his connections had stated after his last win that he was going straight to Cheltenham only to change their mind at a late stage after what they concluded, naively as well as erroneously, as a weak opportunity.

Regular readers of this column will know I haven’t been convinced by Potters Charm so far, still to record an overall time or inter-race sectional that suggests he’s a proper Grade 1 horse regardless of what his Aintree win in the Formby in thick fog on Boxing Day might suggest. On the face of things, he was 4lb or 5lb below form here (and more on the clock) but I thought, and it’s possibly a contentious view, that he ran very well in the circumstances.

All of the other hurdles winners raced close to the inside which was the shortest way round yet, for little apparent reason, Potters Charm was kept wide the whole way and just about in touch, conceding significant ground, and after being asked to make his ground into an increasing pace running down the hill was a spent force after the last where the winner Sixmilebridge (timefigure just 117) began to put distance between them again. Good effort though this was, Potters Charm finished tired and this was hardly an ideal preparation for a horse who still looks short on Cheltenham quality.

The Irish had a winner on the Cheltenham card in the form of Moon d’Orange who rather cleverly has been campaigned here since his Irish debut over fences so keeping his mark down and they also had a winner at Doncaster where Jetara won the Grade 2 Yorkshire Rose Mares’ Hurdle for Jessica Harrington.

Smart performance though this was, it wasn’t any improvement on her previous efforts whether judged on form or on time and she would look a bit-part player in either the Mares or the Stayers’.

Yellow Car won the Grade 2 River Don with a performance barely up to even recent winning efforts, and in a modest time (118) too, but Ramses De Teillee, Stay Away Fay, Mahler Mission and The Real Whacker are all horses who have finished in the first three in the race since 2020 and I wouldn’t be too hasty to talk it down.

Meanwhile, in Ireland...

Across at Fairyhouse Aurora Vega won the SBK Solerina Mares Novice Hurdle in a modest 96 timefigure but she too seems likely to miss Cheltenham in favour of the Fairyhouse Easter Festival, so following in the footsteps of her stablemate Ashroe Diamond who completed the same double in 2023.

Of more interest so far as Cheltenham is concerned is Kawaboomga who not only took the maiden hurdle in a 133 timefigure having finished second to Kopek Des Bordes on his Irish debut at Christmas, but managed to run each of the last two furlongs faster than Aurora Vega despite a much stronger earlier pace.

Kawaboomga looked something of a stayer in two runs at Limoges and Auteuil in France but looked a horse with a sharp turn of speed here which would be an asset should he be stepped up to two miles five furlongs.

Much like Constitution Hill had at Cheltenham, Anzadam had a penalty kick at Naas on Sunday and landed the odds easily by 11 lengths from veteran Beacon Edge in a time Timeform returned as 140 while the other Grade 3 on the card, the Naas Novice Chase, went the way of Dancing City as he saw off Bioluminescence and Good Land in a 138 timefigure perhaps helped by steering a much wider course than the others as he kept tight to the outside fence.

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