Is the two-year-old picture clearer after a week of major events for that age group? Not really!
No one colt or filly has separated from the remainder at the top of their divisions and there is still much to play for as we go into the final month of the turf flat season.
Those who threw their hats into the ring included: Wise Approach, who overcame trouble in running to land the G1 Middle Park Stakes at Newmarket; True Love, winner of the G1 Cheveley Park Stakes on the same card; the G2 Royal Lodge Stakes winner Bow Echo; the impressive G3 Tattersalls Stakes winner Distant Storm; the G2 Beresford Stakes winner Hawk Mountain; and the G3 Weld Park Stakes winner Black Caviar Gold.
But the strongest two-year-old form so far still looks to be Deauville’s G1 Prix Morny, in which Venetian Sun edged out Gstaad and the aforementioned Wise Approach, and the G1 National Stakes at the Curragh, where Zavateri beat Gstaad by a head.
A champion two-year-old is usually rated in the low-120s, and we have not had one of those yet in 2025. But races like the Dewhurst and Doncaster’s Futurity are still to come.
Believers in final times being the best measure of a horse’s merit, of which there are still a few, are likely to point to the fact that True Love ran Newmarket’s 6f in a time 0.56s (approximately three and a half lengths) quicker than Wise Approach went on to do, carrying the same weight.
Believers in sectionals, of which there are a growing number, are likely to counter by pointing out that the Cheveley Park was well-run and the Middle Park was not, and that there was an almost identical difference in the opposite direction when considering final-2f times alone.
Fuller context is provided by comparing both horses’ splits to par for the course and distance for a target time of 71.00s, which is exactly what True Love achieved.
Wise Approach was nearly 1.0s (approximately 6 lengths) behind on the clock after the opening furlong – in which he was hampered and stumbled, of course – and lagged further behind by halfway before finishing strongly. There is probably little between the two in reality.
Bow Echo posted a smart or better time in his win, but race standards and prior-rating standards (discussed last week) point firmly to a rating in the 111 to 113 region. As it is, I reckon the Royal Lodge third, Lambourn’s close relative Action (108+), is at least as good a prospect.
Times over the three days of Newmarket’s meeting pointed to ground that was predominantly “good” by the way – it was officially “good to firm” for Friday and Saturday – but we can let that pass in this instance.
The show moves onto ParisLongchamp this weekend, when the Prix Marcel Boussac (1600m, fillies) and Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere (1400m, which is about 1350m in reality, colts and fillies) could change the two-year-old picture.
French juveniles are absent from the male list above (Rayif nearly makes it on 108) and there are only a handful among the fillies. Time to step up to the plate and restore a bit of national pride!
Most of the focus will be on the main event, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, of course. In among other considerations is the question of the effect of the draw at the 2400m trip.
Winners alone are not a good way to judge such things, unless you have a large sample size, which then threatens to dilute topical relevance. Any measure which treats all defeats as equal – whether by half the track or by half a length – is clearly flawed.
That is why I introduced % of Rivals Beaten to racing analysis around 20 years ago. A winner beats 100% of its rivals, while the horse that finishes last beats 0% of them, both self-evidently. But one that finishes second in an 21-runner race is accounting for 95% of its rivals, while one that finishes second in a 3-runner race is beating just 50%.
When applied to the draw, it is usually sensible to smooth the figures by considering the stall in question plus the stall(s) on either side. While the draw is a discrete entity – you can only be drawn in one stall – the effect of the draw should not be.
The increased sensitivity of %RB means small samples are much less of an issue, but, even with this measure, analysts must choose their data carefully.
Where the draw in the Arc is concerned, we need to ignore the two editions which took place at Chantilly, while, at some stage, “this century” will cover too long a time period to be strictly relevant.
You also need to be aware of any fundamental changes to the way of categorising the draw, such as happened in Britain in 2011.
What’s more, the draw can have a different effect on different grounds, which is more relevant to another G1 at the weekend – the Prix de l’Abbaye – as it happens.
There is a small but meaningful advantage to being drawn low in the Arc, and the effect is similar on good going and firmer as it is on all grounds. Horses drawn 10 and lower have a positive expectation on all going, while that shifts to 8 and lower on a sound surface.
As a rule of thumb, 2.4% is roughly equal to 1 lb in the mid-range at all distances, so the advantage to lowly-drawn horses in the Arc is approximately 2 lb and in the Abbaye about double that (with highly-drawn horses disadvantaged by even more). Races are often determined by much less.
The Abbaye has sometimes been one of the biggest “draw” races in the Racing Calendar – such as when stall 3 beat stalls 1, 4 and 5 in 2019 – but this effect diminishes markedly when the ground is good or firmer.
It is still better, on the whole, to be drawn 10 or lower in the Abbaye under such circumstances, but nowhere near as much as when the mud is flying. The weather forecast for Paris over coming days suggests quicker ground than usual. We shall see.
As mentioned previously, I am interested in Daryz for the Arc, in what is an open year. He shaped better than the result on good going at York (fastest of all from 4f out to 2f out) and when just failing to catch Croix du Nord at Longchamp (quickest of all in the closing stages) and promises to be well suited by the step up to 2400m.
Indeed, being by the brilliant 2009 Arc winner Sea The Stars, out of the same year’s Hong Kong Vase winner Daryakana, it could be said that Daryz is bred for a day just like this. Here is hoping he gets the run of the race, not to mention the luck of the draw!
