This race was run at a relatively sedate early gallop and as a result, it is not surprising to see that the horses who raced closest to the early pace were able to dictate matters in the closing stages. Starman Son set only fair fractions and took over 62s to cover the opening 1,000m of the contest. He held on for 2nd place in the end, but the fact that he was able to lead the 15 runner field for the majority of the contest and still had enough left in the home straight to pull clear with the winner would suggest that he was ideally placed. The margins between the winner and the runner-up across our in-race metrics are as narrow as the 0.21s between them when they crossed the winning line. Neptune Des Clos had the better late speed, recording a figure of 57.75 km/h compared to the 57.07 km/h recorded by Starman Son, but the latter had the better overall top speed at 62.63 km/h. If we only looked at the data and not the video replay, it might suggest that there was very little between the pair, but that does not take into account the way that the race panned out in the latter stages. 

Vaclav Janacek did his best to keep his mount covered up and as they began to swing for home, he must have been delighted to see the race open up in front of him. Neptune des Clos is a relatively speedy horse for this trip and his average stride frequency did not drop below 2.21 strides per second at any point in the race. By comparison, the runner-up was able to relax slightly better and dropped his average down to a minimum figure of 2.17 per second, despite the fact that the pair recorded almost identical race average figures. Horses with that kind of cruising speed can require a relatively cute ride to ensure that they last home and having worked very hard to control the pace of his mount, it appeared that Vaclav Janacek had timed things perfectly as they reached the 400m pole. However, when he asked Neptune des Clos to go and close down the winner, Janacek’s mount had other ideas and he veered to his left and began to drift across the track. That appeared to have opened the door for the runner-up, who held a true line down the centre of the course. Neptune Des Clos took 2 steps to his left, on both occasions appearing to jink away from the stick, but the quick thinking Janacek was able to swap the stick into his left hand and straighten his mount in time to rally and eventually get up on the line to win by a length. Given that the winner recorded a run-out speed of 55.08 km/h, a race best figure that was more than 8% quicker than the runner-up, I think it would be fair to say that he was probably value for more than the winning margin might suggest and the front pair had the best part of 5 lengths between themselves and the remainder, who were led home by Hanak under British rider Harry Davies.