Moments of Joy did her job as the pacemaker, getting to the 4 furlong pole in a time of 1:17.51 which helped to ensure that the 5 runner field was stretched to a point, although the winner still recorded a finishing speed of over 107%. However, once asked to go and win her race, Diamond Necklace lengthened readily, ran the fastest final 3 furlong splits in the field, recorded the best top speed (40.56 mph), late speed (37.51 mph) and run-out speed (32.68 mph) figures in the field and readily dispatched the brave but ultimately outclassed Friendly Soul. Across our range of in-race metrics, Diamond Necklace was entirely dominant and I couldn’t build any sort of case for any of her rivals reversing this form from the data. At an average of 24.46 ft she had the longest stride in the field and that statistic, coupled with the fact that she races very efficiently with a minimum stride frequency figure that dropped as low as 2.08 strides per second, would suggest that she will be more than capable of staying an extra couple of furlongs if that’s required in the future. We can make adjustments for the weight-for-age allowance and the nature of the track suiting her better than some of her rivals, but it all feels like a bit of an irrelevance when we are discussing one of the best 3-year-old fillies to emerge from Ballydoyle in the last decade. Friendly Soul has an official rating of 113 and appeared to run up to and possibly beyond that mark, recording a final time (2:04.87) that would have been enough to win 16 of the previous 20 renewals of the Nassau Stakes. See The Fire, beaten by nearly 8 lengths, has now finished in the first 3 in each of the last 3 renewals of this race. Those older fillies set a very fair standard and yet neither of them could lay a glove on Diamond Necklace when Ryan Moore asked her to quicken. At times we can put too much emphasis on the weight carried and I don’t think the 9 lbs could have affected this result. The late speed figures recorded by Diamond Necklace and the way she galloped through the line would suggest to me that she could have found more had it been required.

She travels, settles, quickens and stays and whilst this year’s Glorious Goodwood will most likely be remembered for the Sussex Stakes (and rightly so), Diamond Necklace’s victory in the Nassau Stakes should not slip under the radar as a result and I will definitely be filing this performance in the “exceptional” folder.