Watch & Learn: Timefigure analysis from Graeme North

A few days ago, I was recalling a conversation I had at Timeform with the late Paul Morrell who at the time was editor of Timeform’s formbook, ‘Timeform Perspective, a weighty tome from a bygone age that required not only a muscular physique to haul it from the bookshelf but also a delicate touch to ensure after a bit of use the pages didn’t tear away from their holding ring binders.

In my naïve enthusiasm, I partly convinced him, with a little help along the way from Milk It Mick’s win in the Dewhurst, a 50/1 shot despite running some very quick final sectionals on top of a fast timefigure in the Somerville Tattersall Stakes just two weeks before the Dewhurst, that detailed sectional information would soon become the main driver of horseracing analysis.

Much like the long gone ‘Tomorrow’s World’ television programme that fascinated me in my youth, delivering predictions of future spaceship living in the sky connected by monorail, that’s not exactly how things have turned out and even the trade paper, the Racing Post, which back then at least printed those Newmarket times recorded by Turftrax, barely give them a second look.

Of course, sectional timing analysis doesn’t always uncover ‘what would have happened had the race panned out differently’ on the head of a pin and they shouldn’t always override what you see with your own eyes. Horses can win heavily eased on the Flat as well as over jumps, so a slow finishing speed doesn’t necessarily mean a race has been strongly-run.

Also, the relationship between the sectional distance and the overall race distance often affects upgrades negatively on the Flat when the sectional distance takes up too much of the overall race distance and over jumps where the sectional distance (usually taken from three out but not always) can end up being a tiny proportion of the overall race distance, which is why Timeform reconstructed the upgrade formula over jumps when committing to publishing jumps timefigures.

All the same, those issues are minor given the world it has opened up, and with detailed timing information now available from pretty much every jurisdiction in the world, you can, with a reliable set of universal standard times and finishing pars, tweaked for the unique configurations of each track – finishing speeds are faster at tracks with downhill finishes such as Goodwood than they are at Sandown, for example - make great sense of finishing results from pretty much anywhere you want.

Which is just as well, as in the absence of any worthwhile action taking place over jumps last week, and unable to stretch to an article from the efforts of Café Con Leche and Life On The Park’s efforts at Limerick on Sunday – both well worth a watch by the way - the Dubai World Cup meeting last weekend (along with the Paddy Power Irish Lincolnshire meeting that kick started the Irish turf Flat season at the Curragh) have ridden to my rescue.

As I’ve written before, Timeform don’t return timefigures for Meydan that get made public but they along with sectionals are available internally to inform ratings, though unfortunately the Trakus site was having severe issues on Monday afternoon when I started putting this article together and the sectionals still hadn’t been made available by the time I sent it across for publication, so I’ll concentrate largely on what the main races served up from a timefigure perspective.

Those who are critical of racing at Meydan for staging Group Ones or Twos that are far less competitive than they are in Europe will have felt their opinion vindicated by Broome’s win in the opening turf event on the card, the Dubai Gold Cup.

His victory in the Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot last summer in a 116 timefigure had looked something of a 2021 stand-out effort, but the admirable globetrotter had posted figures of 122 and 120 in his earlier years at the Curragh and Leopardstown and a 121 timefigure at Meydan trying two miles for the first time, nailing the recent Group 3 Nad Al Sheba winner Siskany on the line, suggested he’s just about as good as ever, though whether he can step up further and show himself an able substitute for the stable’s sidelined staying star Kyprios remains to be seen.

The locally-trained Danyah took the honours in the Al Quoz Sprint, not that you’d have known it from the on-course commentary which failed to mention him at all. Better known over here as the winner of the 2021 International Stakes Heritage Handicap for Owen Burrows, he won that contest in a 118 timefigure and nearly matched that at the weekend, posting a 116 down at six furlongs for the first time since 2019 but only getting up close home.

The remaining two turf contests, the Dubai Turf and Dubai Sheema Classic, went to Lord North and Equinox respectively with pride of place going to the latter whose three-and-a-half length defeat of the Irish Derby winner Westover earned him the title of Timeform’s current best turf horse in the world.

That’s a tall accolade and it was an impressive display of front running for sure, though a 123 timefigure does suggest the Japanese star slightly got things his own way in front. If anything, the performance of the meeting on turf for me came from his compatriot Danon Beluga in the Sheema Classic.

Lord North was winning the contest for the third time running (he dead-heated last year) but a winning timefigure of just 105 compared to a 125 winning form rating suggests the race had a big tactical element to it and Danon Beluga is surely the one to take from the race.

That might be an odd thing to say given he’s trained in Japan but considering how far behind Lord North he was turning for home, cutting that deficit to three-quarters of a length was some effort.

He was beaten just over a length by Equinox in last autumn’s Tenno Sho before having no luck in running when fifth in the Japan Cup, so given he’s only had a handful of races and would have found the Sheema distance very much on the sharp side, he has the look of one that should go very well should he be brought across to Royal Ascot or France later this year.

There were two other Japanese winners on the card in the dirt races with Derma Sotogake (116) winning the UAE Derby by nearly six lengths in a 116 timefigure, the same as his form rating, while Ushba Tesoro (126) ran out a convincing winner of the Dubai World Cup albeit in a lowly 103 timefigure.

A wide-margin win was also the order of the day in the Godolphin Mile where Isolate (122 rating) scored in a 118 timefigure but there was a much closer finish in the Golden Shaheen where Sibelius (118) nosed out the local veteran Switzerland in a 111 timefigure.

Over at the Curragh, the Paddy Power Irish Lincolnshire attracting a 27-strong field including a couple of challengers from Britain and it was one of that pair, Lattam, who brought the prize back across the Irish Sea.

Timefigures are never easy to return at the Curragh at the best of times and though all the races were at least helpfully within three furlongs of each other, the vast number of runners understandably led to some ground deterioration as the day wore on.

Detailed sectionals from the Curragh are not available – and even those that were made available last year were dubious in places – but though Lattam emerged with the joint biggest upgrade in the Lincoln his upgrade would have been significantly greater had it been taken from nearer the line given the seemingly-impossible position he found himself in with over a furlong to run.

His win added to the excellent statistics - around a 22% strike rate since the start of 2017 - William Haggas has in handicaps with horses returning in the sphere after an absence of 150 days or more and which weren’t making their first start for him, This a statistic that might be of interest to those readers still with me by the final paragraph.

Bucanero Fuerte created a good impression in the opening two-year-old contest. A 75 timefigure isn’t particularly noteworthy, not least given his race was the first on the card, but a 21lb upgrade, easily the highest in the contest, elevates that rating to 96 which isn’t far off Royal Ascot standard.

Anyone who follows Racing Twitter might already be aware of Graeme Dand who went by the username @formanalyst but passed away sadly last year after a battle with bowel cancer. A race was named in his honour at Ripon as well as a season-long naps tipping competition which, like his memorial contest, is running again this year and has already attracted around 300 entries by all accounts.

Two selections (win or each-way) are allowed in 40-odd nominated big handicaps (starting with the Lincoln this weekend) and the competition has both a League and Cup format. So, if you fancy your chances of beating me, as well as several much higher-profile Racing Twitter accounts for some big prize money, then check out the Dandinap Tipping Competition on Twitter (@Handinapcomp) and get your registration in before the entries close on Wednesday.

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