The winner’s stablemate Action did his job in the early stages and ran the fastest opening furlong splits in 16.29 and 13.70s to get himself to the front and set a fair pace in the conditions. Action ultimately faded, but his early exertions did help to ensure that the race was stretched to a certain degree. Christmas Day was ideally placed by Ronan Whelan and in a race where the first 3 to cross the line recorded finishing speeds above 106%. The winning time of 2:43.75 made this the slowest Derby on the clock since 1983 and with rain falling throughout the day, it would be very hard to try and put an exact measurement on the state of the ground by the time the stalls opened just after 4:00pm. Christmas Day was in the right position and if we take the 3rd placed James J Braddock as an example, the fact that he was 1.39s behind the winner at halfway did mean that he had a lot of ground to make up, especially in the conditions. However, when Ronan Whelan had a decision to make at the top of the home straight, he appeared to make the right one as he brought his mount to the centre of the course. Once in front, Christmas Day recorded a late speed figure of 34.46 mph, the best in the field and half a mile an hour quicker than the runner-up Maltese Cross (33.91 mph). Closing furlong splits of 12.52 and 13.42s were also race best numbers and he crossed the line 0.53s ahead of the runner-up, an almost identical time to the 0.5s gap between the pair as they passed the 4 furlong pole. 

The winner was the fastest finishing runner in the field when he won the Ballysax Stakes at Leopardstown in April and although he was beaten in the Dante Stakes at York in May, he made his challenge on the stands side that day in a race where the winner and runner-up remained on the far side. It’s quite hard to be sure how much this performance can be attributed to the softening ground. Christmas Day traveled nicely and was also able to conserve energy as they came down the hill, with his average stride frequency reaching its race low figure of 2.09 stride per second in the 8th furlong. When asked to go and win his race, he quickened and returned to a peak stride frequency average of 2.26 strides per second just 2 furlongs later. Our data can only ever be used to describe what actually happened on the track and the data from this year’s Derby clearly shows that Christmas Day was the best horse on the day. Whether this form will be upheld in different conditions next time is perhaps a bigger question.