Watch And Learn: Graeme North timefigure analysis

With half of Leopardstown Racecourse, or so it seemed, under water in the lead-up to the Dublin Racing Festival it perhaps wasn’t surprising that the first day’s card (subsequently moved to Monday) was abandoned following further rain.

Predictably, conditions were unusually testing and for the first time since the fixture's inauguration in 2018 Timeform called the ground heavy on the hurdles track (it was soft on the chase course); conditions were even more challenging on the rescheduled Monday, however, with both the hurdles and the chase track riding around 23lb slower than the previous day according to the going allowance used by Timeform to calculate its timefigures and the chase course too verging on heavy.

For any reader anxious that their ante-post Cheltenham fancy had a hard race in bad conditions my advice would be don’t worry too much - in 2018, which was the last occasion the ground was as testing as this according to going allowances, of the 12 winners who went on to Cheltenham three won (Footpad in the Arkle, Samcro in the Baring Bingham and Relegate in the Champion Bumper), and another four ended up finishing second.

Majborough soars to big DRF number

If there is one horse from the opening day who should have little trouble going on to follow up at Cheltenham if historical pointers are any guide it is Majborough, whose 179 performance rating in the Grade 1 Ladbrokes Dublin Chase if repeated in the Champion Chase in six weeks’ time would have won him every renewal since Altior in 2018 - and with some ease too.

That 179 performance is fully backed up by the clock; worth 179 too, a timefigure that is the best recorded in the history of the Dublin Racing Festival, eclipsing the 176 and 174 Chacun Pour Soi recorded in the same race and is the second-best timefigure at around two miles (behind Altior’s 180) since Timeform started returning timefigures over jumps.

The brilliant Chacun Pour Soi never got near his best form at Cheltenham (or at Sandown in his only other hop across the Irish Sea, seeming to me unsuited by the fences coming up in much more rapid succession than the evenly-spaced ones in Ireland) but Majborough has already won at the Festival, albeit over hurdles in the 2024 Triumph, and was beaten less than a length in the muddling 2025 Arkle despite all but coming down two-out after several earlier scruffy jumps.

Majborough hadn't been foot perfect in either of his two races before the Dublin Chase this season, the Hilly Way at Cork and the Paddy’s Rewards Club Chase here at Christmas, but the application of cheekpieces for the first time finally unlocked the ability that he’d often hinted had been there if he put it all together and he reversed Rewards Club form with last year’s Champion Chase winner Marine Nationale and Hilly Way winner Found A Fifty in no uncertain terms, passing the post 19 lengths clear in what was the largest winning margin in the race after the 12-length routs by Min in 2018 and Chacun Pour Soi in 2022.

If there’s reason to be cautious regarding his Cheltenham prospects it might be that he’s unlikely to be allowed quite as much rope at Cheltenham (a course where Marine Nationale is unbeaten) as he was at Leopardstown which is known as something of a front-runners track, and there's always the question of whether the headgear will work just as well again. We shall see.

Another horse successful on the opening day and heading back to Cheltenham in an attempt to redeem her 2025 defeat is Brighterdaysahead, who reversed December Hurdle form with Lossiemouth in the Timeless Sash Windows Irish Champion Hurdle.

The hurdles track in use wasn’t the usual one but a narrower version just inside the chasing line, but that’s no reason to question the result with the gallop set by El Fabiolo a strong one and Brighterdayshaead his nearest pursuer until she took up the running two out, from that point galloping on too strongly for Lossiemouth (who’d already had the benefit of a previous run when the pair had met at Christmas) to pass the post three lengths clear in a very smart 157 timefigure.

Lossiemouth might not have been at her absolute best – she recorded a 158 when winning the Morgiana back in November – but it shouldn’t be forgotten that not only did Brighterdaysahead run a 166 in this race last year when trouncing Winter Fog and State Man by 30 lengths, but that that performance came on ground Timeform called good.

'No horse has better claims on recent form than her in this year’s Champion'

Brighterdaysahead clearly wasn’t right at both the spring Festivals she contested last season (fourth in the Champion Hurdle, third in the Mares Champion at Punchestown) but so far as the clock goes no horse has better claims on recent form than her in this year's Champion, though of course Constitution Hill remains the standout on time if he gets round in anything like the form he was in before succumbing to the jumping yips.

On the face of it, the race seemed to end any hopes that Anzadam might put his name even more prominently into the frame but tactics and jockey booking seemed an odd combination to me and I'm still hopeful there’s a better performance in the locker, perhaps under Danny Mullins.

Another horse on the day who was aided by cheekpieces (and is now two from two in them) was Kaid d’Authie, who had already looked one of the season’s leading novices but even so put up a much-improved performance to win the Ladbrokes Novice Chase by four lengths from Western Fold.

Kaid d’Authie was another who ran unsuccessfully at Cheltenham last year but his cause that day wasn’t helped by steering a very wide course and though he followed in the footsteps of the likes of Fact To File, Galopin Des Champs and Monkfish, who all won this race in recent years, whether he’s up to winning the Brown Advisory I’m not sure; he should stay three miles but a 120 timefigure (149 is his best) is testament to the muddling nature of a race in which Final Demand never jumped fluently and ran well below his best.

There was little of interest on the clock in the other Graded races with neither Talk The Talk nor Moonverrin getting anywhere near their performance figures but the sectional data in the concluding handicap was quite revealing with Bowensonfire running a faster last mile than anything else over hurdles on the card despite its late position in the running order.

An 8lb rise in his Irish mark to 148 on the back of it looks a bit harsh given the heavily-backed runner-up I Started A Joke got only 4lb; the latter looks one to keep on the right side.

Chase performances took centre stage Monday

The rescheduled second day might have been a bit more predictive so far as Cheltenham is concerned than the first than with Doctor Steinberg and Narcisco Has both ending the day as strong favourites for the Albert Bartlett and the Triumph respectively, but neither achieved anything out of the ordinary on the clock.

Doctor Steinberg fired off a 130 and Narcisco Has dominated a steadily-run juvenile hurdle before finding plenty to score in 107 (stablemate Selma De Vary caught the eye on sectional data in the same race on her Irish debut, running the fastest mile and half mile over hurdles all afternoon, something of a red flag for me given her somewhat ordinary French form).

The best figures of the afternoon were put up over fences, with Fact To File posting a 158 in the Paddy Power Irish Gold Cup and Romeo Coolio 156 in the Irish Arkle.

The Irish Gold Cup looked a properly-run race on the face of things but the winning timefigure suggests a slightly perplexing element somewhere within its makeup and the fact that Firefox could finish so close in fourth, almost getting to Galopin Des Champs on the climb to the line having raced well off the pace, suggests the form probably isn’t as good as the form amongst the other principals might make it look, even if a tardy first attempt at three miles ended up suiting him.

That said, Fact To File was unquestionably the best horse on the day even if he did take a slightly more inner route than some of his rivals, always travelling strongly and belatedly proving the impression right from the John Durkan that his defeat then by Gaelic Warrior (who was second here, keeping on after taking a strong hold as usual) was down to giving that horse too much rope.

Galopin Des Champs was below his best again in his bid for a four-timer in the race, one of several from the Savills Chase to run here and make that form decidedly substandard, comments which might also apply now to last season’s Gold Cup in which he finished second behind this season’s star let-down Inothewayurthinkin (never in contention here and barely raised a jump at the last), with 40/1-shot Gentlemansgame third and Monty’s Star (sixth here having finished fifth in the Savills) close up in fourth.

Perhaps the King George, in which four of the first five were seven or younger and in which Gaelic Warrior came third and Fact To File sixth, is the race that will prove the best pointer to the Gold Cup assuming Fact To File heads again to the Ryanair and isn’t supplemented for the Gold Cup.

Coolio career-best in Irish Arkle

Having kept Firefox to shorter trips for so long, it suggests to me that his trainer Gordon Elliott will also likely keep his star novice Romeo Coolio to two miles and head for the Arkle rather than try his luck in the Brown Advisory over three for all he already has two wins over two-and-a-half miles in soft ground to his name.

A 156 timefigure here is a career best, 2lb higher than he posted in the Grade 1 novice chase at the Christmas meeting, but as in that contest he had to dig very deep to get on top and look to need every inch of the trip to overhaul the mare Kargese who made an error at the last yet rallied strongly close home to almost get back up.

For all his form claims it's hard not to think that Romeo Coolio will be vulnerable kept to two miles at Cheltenham; none of his chasing wins have been in races run faster than four minutes seven seconds and a typical Arkle, a race his trainer has yet to win (0-7), takes around 14 seconds less than that.

British runners gave the racing in Dublin a wide berth once again and could only muster two runners in the only domestic Grade 1 of the weekend, the Virgin Bet Scilly Isles Novices’ Chase. Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott supplied the first two in the betting with Kitzbuhel and Kala Conti but the former unseated at the sixth and the latter lost her unbeaten record over fences as Fergal O’Brien’s front-running Sixmilebridge never looked like catching, getting within 7lb of the 151 timefigure he posted at Cheltenham in December.

He’s well worth his place at the Festival, but it bears repeating all his last seven races have been at the intermediate trip of two-and-a-half miles and two previous visits to the Festival have seen him underperform greatly.

More from Graeme North

• January 27 - What did we learn on Trials Day?
• January 20 - Old Park Star impresses on clock
• January 13 - Taken by Future Prospect
• January 7 - No Drama This End still has questions to answer

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