Having been sent off at an SP of 1.3, this was clearly seen to be a relatively straight forward task for Tommy Jo, who came into this race after a pair of victories at Saratoga, the latest when getting the better of Percy’s Bar in the G1 Spinaway Stakes. On that occasion she had been the best horse, pulling clear in the home straight with closing furlongs of 12.62 and 13.79s, both of which were the best in the race. At an average of 24.15 ft, she recorded a longer stride than her main rival at Saratoga, as well as a faster top speed (42.97 mph) and there was no obvious reason to think that the form would be reversed over this extra furlong and a half. However, Tommy Jo certainly didn’t travel with the same zest in the early stages of the Alcibiades Stakes and as you can see from the data above, this wasn’t an outstanding performance when she is compared to her rivals. She pulled quite hard in John Velazquez’s hands as the front 3 competed for the lead around the first turn. She was the fastest horse to reach the 6 furlong pole in 29.18s and eventually settled behind the pace setting Percy’s Bar, who had been able to hold the inside line around the turn to eventually lead the field down the back stretch. Once rounding the turn, the pair pulled clear of the rest, as their market positions suggested they might, but it is at this point that the race began to unravel.

Having begun to close, Tommy Jo reached the leaders quarters after running the fastest penultimate furlong split in the field (12.94s), but as Percy’s Bar emerged from the shadow into the sunlit part of the track, he jinked to his right. In doing so, he inconvenienced Tommy Jo, who appeared to lose all momentum and from that point the race was over as a contest. It is difficult to put a figure on how much that interference affected Tommy Jo, but what we can say is that her average stride length dropped significantly over the closing furlongs (7.16m, 6.78m and 6.49m) and if we compare that to the stride length data of Percy’s Bar (7.03m, 6.90m, 6.71m) it does suggest that Tommy Jo was impacted. At a peak race average of 7.76m, Tommy Jo had the longest stride in the race and whilst a finishing speed 92.57% did turn this into a stamina test, the visual impression would suggest that she was getting to Percy’s Bar at the point that the incident occurred. However, Ben Colebrook and his team would be right to feel slightly aggrieved by the Stewards decision. Having won the race by over 2-lengths and a time margin of 0.49s, Percy’s Bar has run a fine race and when we look at the sectional times over furlongs 6 and 7, there is a difference of just 0.03s in her favour. Clearly the move out of the shadows into the light has caused an issue for her and she has definitely checked the momentum of Tommy Jo, but I think it is fair to say that this result may not have been reversed had it occurred in other jurisdictions. If nothing else, she has got a lot closer than she did in the Spinaway Stakes and it is not impossible to think that she may yet reverse this form were the pair to meet again as the data suggests that this would have been a close finish had the pair been able to run on a true line in the final furlong.