Watch And Learn: Graeme North timefigure analysis including Almeraq and Extremely Zain

September and the onset of autumn normally brings with it big fields outside the increasing number of races restricted to two-year-old but the Betfair Sprint Cup attracted its smallest field since 1997 and the seven-furlong handicap that opened Ascot’s card on the same day attracted only eight runners when it normally has at least twice that, suggesting that field sizes at a time of a shrinking horse population and smaller foal crop numbers might soon become a year-round thing.

While the Betfair Sprint Cup has been known for large fields in recent years - 16 or 17 runners haven’t been uncommon sizes - it hasn’t always been so. The 1997 renewal referred to won by Royal Applause attracted nine runners, and in the years preceding that Cherokee Rose beat just five rivals in 1995, while the three renewals in the seasons between 1992 and 1994 drew just eight, seven and eight runners respectively.

None of those 90s renewals referred to took place on ground any faster than good according to Timeform, and though the race has a reputation for being run in testing conditions nowadays, this year was the first since 2020 that the going was softer than good, hard to think that played a part in the small turn out.

Whatever, the recent downward turn in the weather favoured the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee winner Almeraq who’d scrambled home at Royal Ascot on good to firm ground but looked much more at home here as his overall soft-ground record suggested he would be, delivering his best performance yet to win by the widest margin in the race this century, his four-and-a-quarter win over Paborus and the 2025 winner Big Mojo just eclipsing the four lengths Harry Angel won by in 2017 and three-and-three quarters of a length Minzaal scored by in 2022.

Wide-margin wins don’t always translate into fast timefigures, of course, though they certainly did for Harry Angel and Minzaal who were both credited with 125.

Almeraq’a winning timefigure came in at a more modest 109, though a 6lb sectional upgrade across the final three furlongs (he was the only one of the first six home whose sectionals merited one) takes that overall timerating to 115 and if his final furlong is taken in isolation he moves up to 118.

Obviously the first three home from the July Cup were missing, though there’s no guarantees any of them would have beaten Almeraq under these very different conditions, not least given that race didn’t pan out well for him then at all, getting little cover on the wing of the main group and too keen as a result, and absent too were the first three from the Commonwealth Cup, though soft conditions wouldn’t have suited Venetian Sun and may not have suited Almeraq’s stablemate Division, who more than any other horse running at six furlongs this season has looked unlucky not to have won a Group 1 race.

Hopefully, there’ll be a much more representative field at Ascot on Champions Day next month on ground that doesn’t disadvantage any involved.

The Betfair Sprint Cup wasn’t the only Group race on the card at Haydock, as the day kicked off with the Group 3 Superior Mile Stakes.

Three-year-olds have won three of the renewals since 2019 with two of those winners, Triple Time in 2022 and Zeus Olympios in 2025, going onto to score at a higher level the following season, but the best the three three-year-olds could manage this season was fourth place behind Persica who is the second five-year-old trained by Richard Hannon to win the race in the last four years following Chindit in 2023.

Persica has on several occasions run faster timefigures than the 99 he returned here, including a career best 107 three runs ago in the Listed Steventon Stakes at Newbury, and this run only served to emphasize how versatile he is with that strongly-run Newbury win coming at a mile-and-a-quarter on firm ground while this win was on soft at a mile.

There was also a Listed race on the card, the Ascendant Stakes which was named in honour of Bow Echo who took it last year (Triple Time also won it in 2021).

The renewal Bow Echo won had been slowly run, producing a winning timefigure of just 71, and this one was even slower with First Law's figure an even more modest 43. Just over a length covered the first three home and sectionals suggest that the one to take out of the race was Andrew Balding’s Arthurian who came home in third but with the fastest final furlong after the two ahead of him had got first run.

Good timefigures are a consequence of how a race is run, of course, and not the status of the race itself, and the best figure of the weekend came not in any of the Group but in a handicap, the Betfair Be Friendly Handicap to be precise where George Scott’s three-year-old Poatan posted 110 off a BHA mark of 97.

Last seen at the York Ebor meeting when returning from ten weeks off from a less-than-ideal draw (makes the third horse from that race, Naana’s Shadow, very interesting next time) he had been third in a Listed race on his reappearance and is almost certainly up to winning at that level this autumn if ground stays on the soft side.

The other high timefigure of the week came in Listed company and was recorded by Extremely Zain at York. He’s a horse whose striding metrics suggest he ought to be more comfortable at significantly longer trips, but after four runs at seven furlongs this season he was brought back to six and responded with his best performance yet, running to a Timeform rating of 114 and a timefigure of 109, adding to his stable’s strong hand in this division (Almeraq, Division) and given his imposing physique likely to be even better next year.

The aforementioned Andrew Balding was also responsible for one of the two Group winners down at Kempton, Moonrise in the William Hill Sirenia Stakes, but the race played second fiddle on the card to the same sponsors' September Stakes which took place without its star five-day attraction Bay City Roller, whose connections opted to head to France presumably in search of soft ground but found themselves encountering some of the fastest conditions seen at Longchamp’s Arc Trials meeting for years.

Nonetheless, the race still possessed plenty of interest given it was the event chosen for the third Flat appearance of former outstanding hurdler Constitution Hill. Exactly what condition Constitution Hill turned up in only his trainer will know - and he seemed to think he was pretty straight - but up considerably in class with much more on his plate than either the market or the pre-race coverage might have suggested he ran well against rivals far better than those he had swept aside on the Flat previously, looking a danger two furlongs out but outpaced in what wasn’t a strongly-run race (winning timefigure was just 97) and finishing with a speck or two of blood in his nostrils.

It’s hard to know what his ideal distance will turn out to be if kept to the Flat, and options are limited now he has an official rating of 108, but a much more strongly run race than this will suit.

The winner Pride Of Arras who was unable to chance his chance in the Juddmonte International after getting upset in the stalls when he had been loaded well before any of the other runners. On the face of it that would have been a tough task for all he’s a cracking record at York, but he showed he’s not a one-course pony with a performance as good as he has ever put up, only needing to be ridden out to beat Gethin by a length.

The Sirenia looked an open renewal but it was turned into a rout by Moonrise whose performance under a penalty is among the best in the race in the last decade and those winners that showed similar or better form (Mischief Magic, Kessaar, Invicible Army and The Last Lion, all of whom were males) all went on to notable successes at a higher level. That said, if there’s one question mark over the form it’s the way the race was run, unusually steadily, and Moonrise was in the best place throughout on the front end. Soon to the fore from a wide draw, she dictated the gallop and then quickened clear inside the two-furlong pole to score in an ordinary 93.

Review of the Arc trials at ParisLongchamp

Over in France at ParisLongchamp on Arc Trials Day, the ground was riding much faster than the official going descriptions would have you believe once again with the times for every one of the first five Group races on the card the fastest since at least 2011 and the Prix Foy only falling outside that pattern given it was run at a dawdle early on.

Given the proximity of the third, Daryz can’t be said to have advanced his Arc claims, though given the ease of his win can’t be said to have damaged them either, comments that also apply to the runner-up Bay City Roller who will be a much different proposition in a month’s time on properly soft ground.

Friendly Soul won a well-run Prix Vermeille, coming home in easily the slowest final 600m of the Group races, but didn’t show a level of form that would encourage participation in the Arc and probably wouldn’t have won anyway had third-placed Sunly got the breaks, nearly on the floor after leaving the stalls and then hampered when starting her run.

The progressive Varandir won the Niel on a good day for the Aga Khan Studs, staying on strongly and having a flat Benvenuto Cellini back in fifth, while Aidan O’Brien’s other big Sunday hope Gstaad also looked laboured in the Prix du Moulin, though anyone who had seen the winner Erdenali in the Prix Messidor last time shouldn’t have been surprised by the result, hemmed in on the rail of the whole of the Deauville straight and barely coming off the bridle.

The two juvenile contests didn’t produce anything of particular note, though Ed Bethell’s Carlisle winner Rogue Passion picked up nicely to land the Prix d’Aumale in a race third-placed Data can be marked up significantly as she was constantly denied a run.

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