The build up to the Jamaican Derby revolved around We Jammin. Sent off at odds of 4/5, he had missed the Jamaican 2,000 Guineas with an injury, but had quickly bounced back from that to win the St Leger by over 4 lengths, recording an impressive top speed figure of 39.8 mph in the process. He deserved to head the market on that basis and having had London Spirit well behind him on that occasion, the form looked fairly solid. However, whilst hindsight is a wonderful thing to have in racing, there were some clues from the data in the St Leger that London Spirit may have been able to get closer. Although beaten by almost a second (0.94s) in 3rd, London Spirit had recorded the fastest late speed (33.55 mph) and run-out speed (31.65 mph) in the field under Shaheem Gordon and both figures were more than 4% quicker than those recorded by We Jammin. That did at least suggest that the extra 500m was going to suit and so it proved. We Jammin had every chance and having hit the front and pulled a couple of lengths clear around the final turn, Reyan Lewis must have felt that he was in control of the Jamaican Derby at that point. However, once they turned for home, it became clear that We Jammin was tiring and as his stride shortened, he couldn’t sustain his challenge.

Instead it fell to one of the outsiders, Maverick, to make his bid for glory. At odds of 82/1, Calvin Bailey was clearly on board a long shot, but he rode him with such confidence that it appeared that he had timed things perfectly as he swept past We Jammin in the home straight. A late speed figure of 32.84 mph was much faster than the beaten favourite and having recorded the fastest time for the penultimate furlong, he looked to have won the race. However, much like We Jammin, he had perhaps committed slightly too soon and when London Spirit kicked into top gear in the closing stages, he had no answer. The winner made up the best part of a second inside the final furlong to get his head down on the line where it mattered and for the 2nd race in a row he recorded race best late speed and run-out speed figures. At an average of 23.09 ft, his stride length ranked only 9th, but what he lacks in size he makes up for with stamina in abundance. We saw an increase in his average stride frequency in the final half a mile of the contest, one of only 3 horses in the 16 runner field to do so and that stride frequency figure continued to increase all the way along the home straight. He hit the line very strongly and simply had too much for his tiring rival, although I’m sure that Calvin Bailey may well feel that Maverick had done enough to hold on. His stride frequency averages reached a peak of 2.47 per second from an overall race average of 2.28, an increase of 8.3% compared to an increase of just 5.8% from the runner-up. That may seem like a small margin, but over the 2,400m trip it makes a significant difference, especially when London Spirit was able to increase his frequency figures in the final furlong. The son of Bern Identity, who was a G2 winner over 6 furlongs in the US, he has shown himself to be able to stay strongly over the longer distances and whilst his top speed (39.5 mph ranked 9th) may leave him behind in the early stages of the better races, his stamina means that he will always finish his races well and on occasions like this where the leaders are tiring, he will always have a chance of running them down, just.