As we begin our build up to British Champions Day at Ascot this weekend, the curtain is beginning to come down on the 2026 Flat season in the UK. Newmarket’s Future Champions Weekend offered some of the last chances to get a good look at next year’s Classic generation before they are put away for the winter. With that in mind, I have looked through some of the key races on the Rowley Mile this weekend and picked out a few key points from the data.
The final Group 1 of the season at Newmarket was billed as a match race and it certainly didn’t disappoint. Darkness Falls came into Saturday’s Dewhurst Stakes with a lofty reputation following a comfortable success in the Group 1 Golden Fleece Stakes at the Curragh and he took the switch to Newmarket in his stride as he held off Desert Castle inside the final furlong under Ryan Moore.
The data does look to suggest that he was the worthy winner as he recorded the best late speed figure in the field at 39.28mph, but it would equally suggest that a case could be made for the form being reversed and I am sure that the connections of Desert Castle will be looking to come back in 2027 and have another go at him.
A lot was made of the tail wind at Newmarket this weekend and there were some very fast times recorded as a result. Each of the first four races on the Rowley Mile on Saturday were run in quick times and the Dewhurst, at 1:22.47, was run in the fastest winning time since US Navy Flag in 2017. On ground officially described as Good (good to soft) in places, that is quite a remarkable point and with the leading pair finishing more than 2 lengths ahead of the Coventry Stakes winner Great Barrier Reef, this looks to be some of the strongest two-year-old form we have seen and the pair seem likely to dominate the market for the 2,000 Guineas in May over the winter.
At an average of 25.47ft, Darkness Falls had the shorter stride of the pair, coming in 0.68ft shorter than the 26.1ft average recorded by the runner-up. Desert Castle was able to lengthen to a peak of 27.22ft, but he couldn’t get past Darkness Falls who had the benefit of having both the stands side rail and the more prominent position to help his cause. The margins between the pair are so minimal, that it would be impossible to form a particularly strong opinion as to which may come out on top if they both make it to the start line in May.
However, with a gap of just 0.05s between them at the line and Desert Castle having been 0.03s quicker over the final quarter of a mile, the current gap between them in the ante-post markets for the 2,000 Guineas does seem a little bit too big.
The winning time was nearly 3s quicker than our expected average and the in-race metrics recorded by both Darkness Falls and Desert Castle were considerably quicker than the expected average figures too. It was a race won by the narrowest of margins and so I’m almost prepared to think that having the stands rail to run alongside may have been the difference.
There are numerous reasons to recommend Darkness Falls as the horse for next season and he showed a tremendous amount of ability to drop back to 7 furlongs to give Aidan O’Brien a record ninth win in the race. He is quite rightly favourite for the Derby at this early stage and there are understandably talks of an attempt at the Triple Crown, but the runner-up was the longer striding horse and so having to make up any amount of ground, especially on a day when the wind was pushing the front runners on, may have been a very difficult task.
If that’s the case, then Desert Castle getting so close and recording a better run-out speed of the pair would be enough to persuade me that he could reverse the form, at least over the mile.
Humidity can make up for lost time
Oh, what might have been! When Humidity finished within a length of Bow Echo in last year’s Royal Lodge Stakes it looked like a good piece of form. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, it looks like a fantastic piece of form and it must leave his connections to wonder what might have been had he been able to compete earlier in the year.
He made his return from injury to win in good style on Saturday, when despite being asked to make his challenge on the wing of the 5-runner field, he quickened clear once meeting the rising ground to win by 2 lengths. He matched the winning time of 1:48.12 recorded by Damysus on Good to Firm to win this race in 2025 and the pair now share the fastest winning time in this race since 2008, although as we have seen the conditions played an enormous part in that.
Humidity ran the fastest split for each of the final 2 furlongs and recorded a race best run-out speed figure of 32.37mph as he won going away. In a race run at a decent pace with a finishing speed of 98.9% from the winner, that was no mean feat on his first start in 375 days. At an average of 25.93ft, Humidity had a much longer stride than any of his rivals (next longest, The Lost King 24.93ft) and he certainly shaped like a horse who will stay further as a result.
He has missed the vast majority of his 3-year-old career, but Saturday’s performance showed that Humidity retains most if not all of the ability that he showed as a 2-year-old and he should be more than capable of making up for lost time.
Musical overcomes tough Times in Fillies' Mile
I also wanted to touch on the Fillies’ Mile in this week’s column. Musical Times had been incredibly impressive when winning the May Hill at Doncaster last month, but if anything, we learned far more about her on Friday, where she won by a length than we ever could from her 7-length demolition of that Doncaster field.
This race was messy. It’s the only word that I can really use to describe it. Caught behind a wall of horses, William Buick was forced to constantly switch direction in an attempt to find racing room. It looked for a time as if the gaps were not going to come and the field was well into the Newmarket dip before they did come, but once free to stretch, Musical Times did just that.
Reaching a peak average of 25.61ft, Musical Times quickened nicely and closed with a late speed figure of 37.4mph, more than 5% faster than any of her rivals. At an SP of 4/9, that might be expected, but behind a consistent pace (Haven recorded a finishing speed of 99.5%) with a tail wind at her back, making up even the smallest of margins was not easy.
Musical Times has a high cruising speed, but she uses a lot of energy to do so. At Doncaster, the minimum stride frequency average that we recorded for her was 2.25 per second (from an overall race average of 2.29) and at Newmarket it was a similar data set, with a minimum average of 2.27 per second from a race average of 2.31. Not only can she travel at speed, but she has shown herself to be agile enough to work her way out of a difficult position and that ability, coupled with her ability to lengthen when she does have racing room, makes her into one of the best 2-year-old fillies around.
Sun Goddess sets a very high standard and it seems highly likely that she will be crowned as Champion 2-year-old filly this year, but she is yet to meet Musical Times. Charlie Appleby’s filly has yet to taste defeat and even if we allow for the fact that this probably wasn’t the strongest renewal of the Fillies’ Mile that there has ever been, she overcame an enormous amount of difficulty to maintain that unbeaten record.
She has confirmed that she handles the Rowley Mile in the process and much like the colts, I think the Godolphin team will harbour thoughts of getting the better of a Ballydoyle favourite in the 1,000 Guineas too.
