As you can probably imagine, a 20-runner heritage handicap over 2-miles on the All-Weather at Newcastle produces a lot of data. There’s a lot of “sifting” involved in the data for a race like this. The track bias, the big field and the nature of the way a race like this develops will always lead to cases for several unlucky losers and horses who weren’t suited by the nature of the race or the surface. Despite the blustery conditions, the first point that we need to make is the time. A winning time of 3:31.28 made this the 3rd fastest winning time since this race switched to the tapeta surface back in 2016. Only Onesmoothoperator (2024) and Antiquarium (2016) have produced a faster winning time than Spirit Mixer. Given that he is a 7-year-old and this was his 36th start, it’s hard to make a case that he improved to run such a good time figure, although with 8 wins in this 36 starts, he wasn’t winning out of turn and his earlier form in the Chester Cup and then behind Aggagio at Goodwood did give him a chance. A finishing speed of 101.7% does confirm the visual impression that this race was evenly run, but at no point in the last 6-furlongs did Spirit Mixer run the fastest final furlong split. He ranked 6th of 20 for his top speed (38.27 mph), 7th of 20 for his run-out speed (30.27 mph) and 15th of 20 for his early speed from the stalls. He was ideally placed by Rob Hornby and deserved to win on the day, but each of the first 4 horses to cross the line could be described as racing in mid-division and the data would suggest that if we ran this race again next week, we may well get a different result.
The case for the unlucky losers has to start with the beaten favourite East India Dock. The Chester Cup winner may be seen as a slight disappointment with a 6th placed finish, but the data would suggest that he is still running to a similar level. Having been last at halfway, he has made good headway to close the leaders, though in reality he was simply given far too much to do this time. He ran 13.47s for the final furlong (ranked 1st) and finished full of running with the fastest run-out speed in the field at 32.01 mph. This was his 16th start since April 2024 and during that time he hasn’t had a break longer than 70-days and this run came just 11-days after his 6th placed finish in the Ascot Stakes behind Ascending. The handicapper is catching up and he is 31 lbs higher than his opening mark on the Flat, but his closing data would suggest that this mark of 99 may not be beyond him later in the season.
To a slightly lesser extent, the comments about East India Dock can also be applied to Zanndabad. He finished 11th, but having been 3-lengths behind the favourite at the 2-furlong pole, it is perhaps worth noting that his final furlong time of 13.89s was ranked 8th and he was simply too far back to ever get involved. He was 4-11 for Francis-Henri Graffard and is 0-15 since going Tony Martin, so you don’t need me to point out that he is hard horse to win with, but he is creeping down the handicap and it’s not impossible to think that a race like the Cesarewitch could be within his range.
I don’t intend to highlight every horse in the field and given that the first 16 horses to cross the line ran a time below the TPD expected time for this race, there are plenty of names to take for the future. The runner-up, Dancing in Paris, has run another solid race and his form with French Master at Goodwood reads very well in hindsight. I don’t like the phrase “he deserves to win one of these” as it is generally applied to horses who don’t actually get their heads in front as often as they should. However, at an average of 24.11 ft he recorded a longer average stride length than the winner and he produced a faster run-out speed (30.69 mph). He stays well, breaks well from the gate and over the final half a mile he was only 0.2s slower than the winner. On another day he might have won, especially if he had been the horse to race alongside the stands rail, but having finished 3-lengths clear of the rest he is likely to be given a rise by the handicapper that will put him into the 90s. All 4 career wins have come on marks of 81 or lower and after 27 starts on the Flat and I can’t make a strong case that he is capable of winning on that kind of mark, for all that it must be said this was a career best.
The more interesting horse from this race and the one that needs to be added to the tracker is Tribal Star. As a 4-year-old on just his 11th start, this was close to a career best and confirmed the form of his 4th placed finish in the marathon race here on All-Weather finals day. All of his best form has come on the All-Weather and that is a slight concern at this time of year, but he finished his race well with a final furlong of 13.52s and an average stride frequency of 2.08 per second was above his race average in the closing stages. He is open to more improvement than most in this field and with an average stride length of 24.90 ft (ranked 2nd), he looks built for the job over 2-miles. His earlier efforts on turf would be an obvious concern, but there will be plenty of options for him on an artificial surface and he should be left on his current mark of 88 following this, which looks very workable.