Watch And Learn: Graeme North timefigure analysis of Royal Ascot

‘Royal Ascot is the great meeting of the year to Englishmen – the meeting at which the standard of racing is at its highest level from beginning to end’.

Those words, written by B. W. R. Curling in his book ‘British Racecourses', still hold true today despite the best attempts of York (which hosted the Royal meeting in 2005 while Ascot was being redeveloped) to match Ascot’s quality at its Ebor meeting by boosting prize money (in fact, the average winning Timeform rating of all the winners at each meeting in the last ten years suggest the gap is widening again, not narrowing).

For all there was some concern over a track bias that favoured the stand side runners in most of the races on the straight course, the latest Royal Ascot provided some thrilling racing with pride of place going to Ombudsman whose 131 timefigure when winning the Prince of Wales’s Stakes by four lengths from a top-class field is the highest winning figure posted at the Royal meeting this century.

Since 2000, a period that has seen over 360 winners, only 20 have been won with a timefigure of 125 or higher. Amendments to how winning margins are calculated as well as altered pound per length values and weight-for-age allowances besides the incorporation of sectional timing data means we can’t compare like for like exactly in that time, so some of the historical figures, if revisited now, might be marginally different.

But five of those figures have come in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes, five in the St James’s Palace, four in the King’s Stand, three in the Queen Anne and one each in the Coronation (the 129 posted by Alpha Centauri was so fast Timeform’s standard time for the round mile had to be tightened immensely and was then used to calculate her figure), the Hardwicke and the Queen Mary.

Ombudsman’s 131 is 2lb higher than the figures recorded in the race by Fantastic Light in 2001 and Poet’s Word in 2018 and 9lb above what he himself posted in 2025 when beating a slightly lesser field than assembled this year.

That 131 comes with a small upgrade at the end of a frantically run race in which the pace set by the leaders was 0.76 seconds (over four lengths) faster to the three-furlong pole than it had been in 2025 when the winning time ended up being 0.73 seconds faster than it was this year.

Neither the 2015 Arc one-two Daryz and Minnie Hauk were able to live with Ombudsman in the closing furlong which he ran in 12.02 seconds, 0.20 seconds slower (around a length and a half under the prevailing ground conditions) than he had the year before.

Timeform have given him a 134 rating master rating; we’re unlikely to see him in the Arc over a distance that suits both Daryz and Minnie Hauk better and probably him not so well but what a match it would be against a top-form Calandagan should the pair clash in the International at York.

How high did shock Queen Anne winner rate?

So, what of the other races that have provided the best timefigures over the years?

They returned a mixed bag to be honest, with the best of them by some way coming in the Queen Anne on the opening day (119) and in the Hardwicke (117) on the final day.

The Queen Anne had provided a shock in 2025 when Docklands had come from out the back in a steadily-run affair to upset some much more fancied rivals including former 2000 Guineas winner and the pair lined up again with the latter a strong favourite having won the Lockinge last time out but they finished only sixth and seventh in a contest won by 50/1 shot Ten Bob Tony who was having his first run at a mile since finishing fourth in the German 2000 Guineas back in 2024 (he had previously finished eighth behind Notable Speech at Newmarket).

Like Docklands he came from last place, but Docklands didn’t finish in the first three in five subsequent Group 1’s last season and like Docklands before him, Ten Bob Tony hadn’t done much before his Queen Anne victory to suggest he was a Group 1 performer.

Conversely, Giavellotto, who won the Hardwicke, had, having won the Yorkshire Cup, Princess of Wales’s Stakes at Newmarket as well as the Hong Kong Vase. He’d also won the September Stakes last year, beating Kalpana, and he beat her again here so taking his personal record against her to 3-0, getting up in the final strides to win by a short-head albeit Goliath, whose best previous performance had come over the course and distance in the 2024 King George, might have won had his rider not lost an iron (finished without both) when just beginning his challenge upsides the winner.

A 117 timefigure is the same as Giavellotto recorded in the 2024 Princess Of Wales’s Stakes, though since the start of 2025 has run abroad more often than he has at home; Kalpana’s 114 back in second is 7lb below her best.

Of the remaining four races mentioned, the St James’s Palace Stakes and the Coronation Stakes this year both recorded the same figure, 108, while the renamed King’s Stand (King Charles III) returned 106 and the Queen Mary 104.

The St James’s Palace turned into something of a tactical affair with Puerto Rico adjudged by the stewards to have been ridden tactically to aid his stable-mate and better-fancied Gstaad, who despite being provided with the easiest access into the race possible still couldn’t reverse 2000 Guineas form with Bow Echo who was not only hampered leaving the stalls but was also forced wide turning for home.

Bacio ready to shine at higher level

Ballydoyle also ran two in the Coronation and though they provided the winner in the shape of Irish 1,000 winner Precise, her stablemate, the 1000 Guineas winner True Love, arguably contributed most to the defeat of second-placed Touleen who found herself hemmed in as True Love was moved alongside and didn’t get out until inside the last furlong which she ran 0.2 seconds faster than anything else despite all of that.

Mission Central’s winning time in the King Charles was 0.12 seconds slower than Asfoora in the first running under its new name and nearly a second faster than American Affair managed last year; barely two lengths covered the first ten, however, and with northern handicapper Heavenly Heather too close for comfort in sixth place this looks dubious form.

The Queen Mary also produced a bunched finish but behind the winner Victorious whose win was pretty much assured once she was pulled out by Ryan Moore, eventually scoring readily by two lengths. Unfortunately, the sectional timing mechanism misfired which was unfortunate as visually this looked a very dominant display.

Wesley Ward was out of luck in the Queen Mary, a race he has won four times before, notably with Lady Aurelia in 2016 when she posted a freakish 127 timefigure, with Ruiva in third doing best of his two runners, but he came away from the meeting with one winner and a remarkable one it was too.

The horse in question is Bacio who won the Palace of Holyrood House Handicap by three-and-three-quarters of a length from fellow American raider Sandal’s Song in a whopping 119 timefigure after an almighty gamble that saw him sent off as the 3/1 favourite.

To put that timefigure into context, it’s the joint-fourth highest at the meeting this century in a handicap and is the highest figure recorded in a domestic five-furlong handicap by a three-year-old this century. For added context, only three other three-year-olds have won a handicap since 2000 posting a timefigure of 105 or more and all went on to win pattern races; Art Power clocked a 117 in the same Ascot race Bacio won in 2020 and later won several Group races including the Champions Sprint; Deportivo posted a 106 in 2003 and later that season won the Flying Five at the Curragh, while Extortionist posted a 105 in 2014 and later won the Coral-Charge at Sandown.

That would seem to suggest that Bacio is a ready-made pattern winner and surely a prime candidate to break his trainer’s duck in the Nunthorpe which he almost won with Lady Aurelia and was also second in with Acapulco in 2015.

Interestingly all three of Ward’s Nunthorpe runners (the other was Golden Pal) have made the running but that’s rarely been the route to success at York – only twice since Timeform started returning comprehensive in-running symbols in 2007 has the Nunthorpe been won by a front-runner, in 2018 by Alpha Delphini and in 2023 by Live In The Dream.

Review of the Royal Ascot two-year-old action

If there is one other potential top-notcher to come out of the two-year-old races besides Victorious it is probably Libertango who won the Albany Stakes and like Bacio and Coventry winner Great Barrier Reef is by No Nay Never whose three wins across the week was second only to Night In Thunder’s four.

Libertango’s timefigure was 103, marginally behind Great Barrier Reef’s (105) and Victorious but unlike the Coventry winner at least earned a notably large sectional upgrade that got bigger through each of the last three furlongs with her final furlong upgrade outstandingly high suggesting her overall timerating could be as high as 112.

Orthodox won the Norfolk in 101, while the Chesham and Windsor Castle were both won in 94 by two colts who had finished first and second in a maiden at Leopardstown last time, Nola Soul and King Of Cloughan.

Of the Group 1 races I’ve not mentioned so far, the highlight from a timefigure perspective as it was from a spectator point of view too was Scandinavia’s win over a game Trawlerman in an epic Gold Cup where the winning timefigure was 119, a career best for the winner by 4lb.

Almeraq won the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee from the Japanese raider Satono Reve in 110, while Venetian Sun scraped home in a messy Commonwealth Cup in 106 in a week that her trainer Karl Burke’s two-year-olds disappointed, although two of them (both of them expensive breeze-up buys) were by the continually underachieving Mehmas.

Causeway did the best of those not mentioned so far in the Group 2 races, posting a 112 in the King Edward VII and looking a legitimate St Leger contender, while Thesecretadversary managed 112 in a bizarre Jersey Stakes and Double Rush (111) did the best in the handicaps, other than Bacio, though runner-up Completely Random earned a 4lb bigger sectional upgrade after being set too much to do.

He was the ‘moral’ winner on sectionals, though as mentioned earlier, several horses can have their efforts marked up on account of track position. Laureate Crown in the Britannia perhaps the most noteworthy of them.

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• Dante Festival fallout
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• Bow above average in 2000 Guineas
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