JenningsBet Northumberland Plate Handicap (Heritage Handicap)
Newcastle - 27th June 2026
“The winner is a smart horse who is worthy of his likely new 100+ rating, but on a track that was riding quickly and favouring the prominent runners, I can’t help but think that there was at least a small amount of good fortune about the way his race panned out. Whilst there is definitely a race in the 4th placed Saint Etienne from what should be a relatively unchanged mark”.
The word “prominent” features in the in-running notes for 6 of the first 7 to cross the line in this year’s Northumberland Plate at Newcastle. The exception is the 4th placed Saint Etienne who we will come to later on, but as a general rule, it paid to be in the vanguard in this year’s race and as a result, anything that raced towards the rear of the 20-runner field can largely be forgiven. There was also the usual draw bias, whereby those drawn in stalls 1-5 were effectively swamped for room by the higher drawn runners as they came across on the approach to the first bend. I’ve started this review on a slightly negative note which I really didn’t intend to. This is a great handicap and one of the most difficult puzzles to solve on the Flat racing calendar, but there can be a confirmed bias at the track, especially in warmer conditions and that needed to be acknowledged before any close analysis of the data could really begin.
I am going to start with the winner. Align The Stars took his career tally to 5 from 26 with this victory and he has now passed the £200,000 prize money line with this success. In 2024, he completed a hat-trick of wins around this time of year and reached a peak rating of 102, eventually running in both the Lonsdale Cup at York and the G1 Prix Royal-Oak at Saint-Cloud. That proved to be a step too far and prior to his return in March, his subsequent form had been somewhat disappointing. However, his 2026 campaign has been a story of redemption. He won the Queen’s Prize at Kempton in March and has now won a Northumberland Plate, with solid runs in Newmarket and Goodwood handicaps in between. Having won this race off a mark of 97, more than a length clear of the runner-up, his connections can probably expect him to be close to or possibly at that career peak of 102 when he is reassessed on Tuesday, but is that fair?
Well the first point to make is the bare data. As our infographic above shows, Align the Stars had the best late speed figure in the field at 35.9 mph and both his top speed and run-out speed figures were above the expected average for a winner of this race from the TPD database. When the race for the line began, he was the best horse in the field and once brought across to the stands side rail, Danny Muscutt’s mount always seemed likely to get past the runner-up (Kirchner) inside the final furlong. He had the better run-out speed of the pair and so there really isn’t any reason to think that Kirchner didn’t have his chance if good enough, he was simply outstayed by a better horse on the day. Whilst the stands side rail may have helped to keep the winner on a true line, the fact that both Tuco Salamanca and Barnaby Rudge won the following races by making their respective challenges away from that rail would suggest that there was not any significant advantage gained from racing on one part of the track compared to another. The winner is now 2 from 4 on an artificial surface and if there is any more juice to be squeezed from his new mark, it may well come on the tapeta, but his trainer implied that a return to Glorious Goodwood for the race that he won when completing his hat-trick 2 years ago may well be the more immediate aim.
The track was riding slightly quicker than might be expected by a “Standard” description and I think it is worth noting that 6 of the 7 races on Saturday’s card recorded winning times that were faster than the TPD expected time figure. The exception was the 2-year-old Novice race won by Barnaby Rudge under a winner’s penalty, so we can say with some confidence that this was one of the faster days on the surface. A winning time of 3:33.75, although under the TPD expected time figure, was slower than the Northumberland Vase 35 minutes earlier, won by the 82-rated Believitanducan for Alan King. Perhaps more significantly, since the change of surface at Newcastle in 2016, only Higher Power (2017) and Trueshan (2022) have recorded slower winning times and they both carried more weight than Align the Stars did. The winner is a smart horse who is worthy of his likely new 100+ rating. He also got a superbly judged ride from Danny Muscutt, but on a track that was riding quickly and favouring the prominent runners, I can’t help but think that there was at least a small amount of good fortune about the way that Align the Stars was placed. His trainer’s own post-race interview with Sky Sports Racing highlighted the fact that an early race move to get into a prominent position may well have been the key to victory and the data would look to suggest as much.
I don’t have enough time or space in this column to highlight the various cases of horses who were in the wrong place or unlucky because of the way the draw or the pace worked out. However, I do want to add one name to the proverbial horse tracker and that is the Brian Ellison trained Saint Etienne. He was one of the few horses to make up any significant ground from the middle to rear of the field and having been over a second off the pace with half a mile left to run, the fact that he finished within 3.5 lengths of the winner should definitely be upgraded. There aren’t any outstanding pieces of data to hang your hat on from our graphic above, but his late speed, top speed and run-out speed figures all outperformed his overall finishing position. He won 4 races in France for Yann Barberot before switching to join Brian Ellison over the winter. Form figures of 90474 since making that switch may not be overly inspiring by themselves, but he is very unexposed over staying distances. On the 2 occasions that he has had his stamina properly tested, he has finished 4th to Klassleader in the Jorvik Handicap at York’s Dante meeting and he has finished 4th in a Northumberland Plate when further back than ideal at the halfway stage. He had one of the higher variances between his minimum (2.05 sps) and maximum (2.37 sps) stride frequency figures, suggesting that he is capable of relaxing in the middle part of the race before quickening when asked. He is a 6-year-old and he has had 27 career starts, but only 4 of them have come at 12 furlongs or beyond and there is definitely a race in this son of Le Havre from what should be a relatively unchanged mark.