Watch And Learn: Graeme North timefigure analysis for Champions Day

One of the greatest strengths of this great game of ours is its irrepressible capacity to reinvigorate.

For some, that may come with the changing of the seasons, witness the multitude of articles available to read right now from enthused veterans looking forward with renewed relish to the new jumping season which begins properly at Cheltenham this weekend. While for others it comes with an unexpected card of outstanding quality.

‘Champions Day’ hasn’t always been what it says on the tin, often because of its late place in the calendar and abnormally soft underfoot conditions that have caused the meeting to be partially hosted on the jumps track. But this year’s card, run on proper fast ground, was an absolute cracker with remarkable strength in depth wherever you looked.

As usual on the normal Flat course at Ascot, the going on the straight track was faster than on the round course, 8.2 compared to 7.3 at the point the final readings were made public (the higher the number the faster the ground is suspected to be) though the more detailed information available on Ascot’s own website revealed that the straight course wasn’t considered universally consistent with the ‘third’ nearest the stand rail supposedly fastest of all from the mile start to the three-furlong marker with the centre ‘third’ fastest of all from three furlongs out to the winning post and the far side ‘third’ slowest everywhere.

The predictive power of that nudge couldn’t be tested until the second race at least, as the first race on the card was the Long Distance Cup which, like the recent Prix du Cadran on Arc weekend, struggled to attract entries and ended up seeing only five go to post.

Trawlerman underlines his champion status

What a race it was, though, run at a surprisingly strong gallop considering the small field, and won by a horse, Trawlerman, who could rightly claim afterwards, like a couple of other winners on the card, to be unequivocally the best in their division.

Successful in the race in 2023 before finishing third last season on his first run for four months at the end of a short campaign, this was a third successive run where he has posted a performance rating of 121 or higher and second time this season too when he has posted a timefigure of 120 or higher.

Soon in the van along with Al Qareem, Trawlerman sealed matters once sent for home just before the home turn, finding his winning margin diminishing as the line approached but always in control.

Sectional upgrades from the two-furlong marker confirm the visual impression that the bare result didn’t really do him justice with respect to his stable-companion Sweet William who stayed on from the back to be second, with the relationship between the pair being more like 5lb as the race was run rather than the 2lb the difference at the weights suggested. Unbeaten in his last four races, he’s the outstanding stayer currently in training.

Where Mission Central will end up sitting in the pantheon of three-year-olds next season remains to be seen, but he ran a near-perfect efficient race in the newly-instigated two-year-old conditions race to run out a slightly comfortable half-length winner in a 106 timefigure in a race where the Mill Reef winner Words Of Truth was third and the field by and large came down the centre.

Glory hits figure up there with 2025 best

Despite the much larger field, the potential stand rail advantage wasn’t explored either in the Champions Sprint, though four of the first six and two of the first three came from the smaller group that raced more towards the stand side where the most obvious pace setter Quinault was drawn.

If there were two runners expected to be there at the end from among the high numbers the betting suggested it would most likely be Sprint Cup winner Big Mojo or last year’s winner Kind Of Blue but the former ran a rare below-par race and the latter displayed a poor head carriage, and it was left to one who went totally unconsidered, Powerful Glory, to run down the gallant Lazzat, who’d cut out most of the running in his group, in the final strides.

This win on the back of eighth place in the Sandy Lane Stakes back in May and fifth (of five) in a minor event at Beverley in September on his only other outings this season might be considered rather suspect, but he’d won the Mill Reef in an undefeated juvenile campaign and the detailed sectionals published by Total Performance Data showed that not only did he run the third fastest last two furlongs of all the races on the straight course but he also ran the fastest mid-sections whether you define that as the third and fourth-last furlongs combined or the four furlongs prior to the final one.

A 118 timefigure is right up with the best of the sprinters in what has been something of a open 2025 division with no clear outstanding candidate, though the connections of Nunthorpe and Abbaye winner Asfoora as well as Lazzat, who hasn’t had track position go his way in his last two races and won the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee at the Royal meeting will no doubt argue their corner.

Commonwealth Cup third Rayevka ran a fair bit better than her position suggests, running those same ‘middle sections’ faster than all else bar Powerful Glory on the same part of the track.

Kalpana goes back-to-back

Few fillies have attracted as much comment this year as Kalpana who was favourite for the Arc at one stage before losing out to Giavellotto in the September Stakes at Kempton, but she finally lost the tag of best horse not to have won a race in 2025 when following up last year's success in the QIPCO British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes.

She won that race tracking the steady pace on soft ground before showing a decisive turn of foot to beat Wingspan by two lengths and she pretty much repeated the performance to a tee under an identical ride and burst for home under conditions that were much faster.

As in 2024, her timefigure was unexceptional – just 59 compared to 78 then – but she had such a positional advantage as the race was run that none of the fillies who managed to run a bit faster than she did in the closing stages - Danielle, for example, who finished fifth after running the fastest last two furlongs all day on the round course, or Estrange and Bedtime Story notably who both ran the last four furlongs faster - were never close enough to challenge seriously.

How do you explain Cicero's Gift's 100/1 success?

So, what to make of Cicero’s Gift who won the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes after racing closest of all to the supposedly ‘slower’ far rail and along it for much of the last two furlongs?

In some ways, this result was an even bigger surprise than Powerful Glory’s Sprint win, as unlike the three-year-old, Cicero’s Gift had never won a Group race before in six attempts and had never run a timefigure higher than 111 either, albeit he had run his best two races this season on his previous two starts and regularly looked a long way short of the calibre revealed in fits and starts earlier in the season by the likes of Field Of Gold, Rosallion, Docklands, Never So Brave and Fallen Angel.

His win - in a timefigure of just 111, so matching his previous best - isn’t easily explained by the sectionals either. The pace for the first four furlongs wasn’t fast – his finishing speed was 104.8% from halfway and 104.1% from three furlongs out when well-run races over the straight mile at the track usually come in at 102.8% and 102.1% - but if nothing else the detailed data suggests he profited from making his move earlier in the race than some while the pace still wasn’t fast - his middle four furlongs, for example, the distance from six furlongs out to two furlongs out, was the fastest of all the runners in the two races over a mile - and that momentum seemingly allowed him to sustain his run given he covered the last two furlongs in his race fastest of all too (Docklands was next best) regardless of track position for all the pair were much slower than the fastest protagonists in the concluding handicap over the same final section.

‘Racing away from the main action’ was a reason given to explain away the performances of several of the big names who disappointed and there might well be some truth in that but a few of them came into this with either with something to prove or in questionable form and one or two had been kept busy lately recently too.

Followed home by 12/1 chance The Lion In Winter and Alakazi (22/1) it seems, at least for the time being, that Cicero’s Gift was probably the beneficiary of very fortuitous set of circumstances - a result with a typical ‘late-season feel’ to it if you will.

Calandagan win easiest of all to explain

In contrast, the result of the QIPCO Champion Stakes is simple to explain, given it won by the best older middle-distance horse in Europe from the second best.

Neither subsequent Prix Vermeille winner Aventure nor Kalpana proved a match for Calandagan in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud or the King George and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes respectively, beaten a combined four-and-a-half lengths, and despite taking the final turn almost in unison, Ombudsman wasn’t able to get any closer than two-and-a-quarter lengths either, though may have done had he not gone so hard through the penultimate two furlongs which he ran fastest of all the races on the round course, arguably costing him in the region of a length.

To some extent, the inferior pacemakers were ignored by the remainder of the runners, which resulted in more emphasis being on finishing speed than a visual interpretation of a strong-looking gallop might have suggested, which only serves to underline Calandagan’s superiority given he’d have been the runner in the field given his stronger mile-and-a-half form best equipped to deal with an even stronger gallop (winning timefigure was just 112).

The gallant Almaqam ran up to his best in third though would have surrendered that position to Delacroix had the latter not got hemmed in briefly early in the straight after being passed by the first two.

There’s not enough space here to add the thoughts of another enthused veteran to pay close attention to over jumps now that Cheltenham is on every jump fan’s immediate horizon, but I’ll take some time next week to discuss a very underrated angle that has threw up several comfortable winners last week and will continue to do so over the coming weeks and months.

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