Timeform Sectional Debrief: Royal Ascot Day 1

The opening day of Royal Ascot 2015 – always a rare treat for Flat racing fans from around the world – was one of the most eagerly awaited of recent years, with raiders from France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Australia and the USA taking on a notably strong home-based contingent.

While some of those long-distance travellers disappointed, the occasion itself did not. Classy racing was the order of the day, especially for the three Group 1s which made up the latest races in the QIPCO British Champion Series.

Conditions were fast, though not fast enough for any track records to be endangered, and the official going description was, understandably, changed from “good, good to firm in places” to “good to firm” following the opener.

That opener was the Queen Anne Stakes, which was billed as a showdown between the top-class French-based and Hong Kong-based geldings Solow and Able Friend. The latter, sweating markedly beforehand, failed to fire, and Solow emerged victorious in rather workmanlike style.

It was possible to take sectionals by-hand, if with difficulty for the first two races, and this is what they say about the Queen Anne.

The pace was sound early but probably dropped slightly mid-race for those last-two-furlong times and finishing speed %s (each horse’s finishing speed compared to its average race speed) to be as high as they were. In this respect, Cougar Mountain, who finished quickest of all from the rear, looks to deserve extra credit.

The overall time of the Queen Anne – fifth fastest of 10 since the course was relaid – was respectable at best, and the fact is that Solow has more convincing efforts on the clock elsewhere.

The King’s Stand was also the fifth-fastest of the last decade and a respectable overall time at best (the two-year-old Washington DC was less than a second slower in winning the listed Windsor Castle Stakes at the end of the card).

Those sectionals show that the runners went plenty fast enough (par finishing speed is 100.5%), and it was left to the six-year-old Goldream, the doughty nine-year-old Medicean Man and the five-year-old Muthmir to battle it out, with the last two each trading at odds on at one stage. Goldream dug deep to prevail, and there were no obvious hard-luck stories in sectional terms in behind.

This year’s St James’s Palace Stakes goes in at number two in the fastest overall times in the last 10 years – behind Henrythenavigator (98.70s) in 2008 – though that is a reflection of a succession of unevenly-run races in the past as much as anything.

Gleneagles again had to show speed more than stamina in coming from fourth of five on the turn, and those finishing speed %s are comfortably above the 100.9% par which indicates efficient pacing. A respectable overall time in the circumstances gets upgraded to one of the best sectional ratings of the season so far, and Latharnach – the only one behind Gleneagles on straightening up – looks to have run as well as the result suggests, also.

While Gleneagles was impressively fast in that last three furlongs, it is worth casting the mind back to 12 months earlier, when Kingman (on only fractionally faster ground) ran 34.2s for that sectional and a stunning 22.35s (Gleneagles was a full second slower) for the final quarter of a mile.

Gleneagles is quick as well as highly classy, and there seems no real need to race him over further just yet, but he has not yet shown the champion-sprinter speed that Kingman showed more than once during the QIPCO British Champion Series last summer, either.