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You get no prizes for running fast against the clock, but there is something much more satisfying when an apparently top-class performance is backed up by the evidence of time.
No quibbles, no “what ifs”, no doubts: it was what it looked.
That was what happened with the Timico Cheltenham Gold Cup on the final day of the 2016 Cheltenham Festival. Despite only nine runners, this looked to be a strong renewal of the blue riband of chasing, with several of the protagonists having run fast times previously.
In the event, uniform splits set up the race for a good performance and another quick time, and that is exactly what we got. Five separated themselves from the rest, and that became four, then three, then two, as Cue Card fell three from home and O’Faolains Boy and Smad Place wilted.
Djakadam and Don Cossack drew on, but that soon became a mismatch as Don Cossack put his stamp on the race.
The gelding, who had seemed unlucky when falling two out in a vintage King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day, made no mistake this time and passed the post with four and a half lengths to spare over his rival. Don Poli plodded on into a never-nearer third, fully 10 lengths back.
Sectionals show that the closing stages were run at near-optimum speed for the conditions. That implies a sound, not overly-strong, pace which helped sort the wheat from the chaff.
Don Cossack stopped the clock in 6m 33.2s (taken from leader crossing the starting line), which is fast in the conditions and a massive 20.4s faster than recorded in the Foxhunter 40 minutes later. This is how the times stack up more widely:
Don Cossack’s timefigure of 178 is the best of the season, hurdles or chases, narrowly surpassing Faugheen’s 177 in the Irish Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown. Indeed, he had run similar figures when winning at Aintree and Punchestown last year, and might well have done so had he stood up at Kempton, where sectionals show that his rivals slowed after he departed.
That Don Cossack is top-drawer material is not in doubt, but how he would have fared had Cue Card stood up, let alone had Vautour turned up, remains a matter of speculation. One of the joys/frustrations of racing is that few questions are ever answered absolutely definitively and for good!
That time comparison with the Foxhunter, while astonishing, is not altogether fair, for the later race was run at nothing like as sound a gallop.
The leaders in the Gold Cup were about a furlong ahead by halfway, and the principals in the Foxhunter even managed to run from the last fractionally quicker than did Don Cossack. Still, it underlines just how hard Don Cossack and Djakadam ran.
Those first two times on the final day card were identical using the aforementioned methodology, but neither should be the limit of what the winners can do, as neither race was entirely truly-run.
In the Triumph Hurdle, third-placed Footpad was more superior to those immediately behind him than the bare result, as he was given plenty to do, but the closing sectionals of the one-two, Ivanovich Gorbatov and Apple’s Jade, were pretty impressive also.
With a sizeable margin back to the fourth horse, this looks above-average Triumph form for the placed horses, even if the overall time does not fully reflect that.
The leaders in the County Hurdle got to three out about five lengths quicker than did the leaders in the Triumph, but that still represents an undemanding pace, and a few of the beaten horses might have finished closer another day.
The time recorded by Unowhatimeanharry in winning the Albert Bartlett was a respectable one, though more detailed sectionals paint a slightly different picture to the one given by that one-off time from three out.
The hurdles in the closing stages of the Albert Bartlett were positioned the same as on the previous day, when Thistlecrack ran a fast time over the same distance in winning the World Hurdle. The leaders in the Albert Bartlett got to three out about 20 lengths later but then made up nine lengths on the run to two out.
That was overdoing it, and the novices’ were nearly 20 lengths slower thereafter. The likes of Champers On Ice and Barters Hill probably went for home too soon: Unowhatimeanharry and runner-up Fagan came from several lengths further back.
The 2016 Cheltenham Festival will be remembered for many things – including for something of a caning for those poor bookmakers at times – but it certainly delivered for those who take pleasure in seeing good horses run good times.
Douvan (164 timefigure), Annie Power (164), Sprinter Sacre (167), Vautour (166) and Thistlecrack (172) set a very high standard, but the best of all was saved until nearly the end. Don Cossack’s 178 was the performance of the Festival from a timing point of view.
