It may once have been one of racing’s best-kept secrets, but the cat is well and truly out of the bag where striding analysis is concerned. You could hardly move for it at this time last year when, famously, Kevin Blake put up the Derby 1-2-3 based on striding alone.
The fact that you can gauge something about a horse’s ability - and even more about its suitability - from studying its striding is now widely accepted, if perhaps still not by the former Racing Post Editor who once observed “Striding? It’s something about backing the ones with the longest legs, yes?”
I think you will find it is more complicated than that, along with other stuff. But, in some respects, stride analysis is remarkably simple.
A horse’s speed is a product of its stride length and its stride frequency (also known as “cadence”), and its measurable ability results from the extent of that speed and the capacity to sustain it.
Long striders tend to make good horses, though the length of a horse’s stride is affected by the circumstances in which it is performing. Firmer ground, downhill sections, and a steady earlier pace will all boost a horse’s stride length. It requires context.
More interestingly, a horse’s cadence requires little in the way of context and yet can tell us a lot about a horse’s requirements, especially its stamina.
Striding fast is required for sprinting, with few exceptions, while switching off is required at longer distances, again with few exceptions.
This is in part because a horse’s striding is synchronised with its breathing and other biological features. It is also the case that most horses’ striding varies only a little through their careers: to a degree, they are hard-wired.
Nowhere is striding analysis more obviously put to the test than in the Betfred Derby at Epsom. Contenders are often asked to do something they have never done before, in distance terms, and the final furlongs of the race are littered with the tattered reputations of non-stayers.
Recent Derby winners have all had either a low maximum cadence, a low minimum cadence, or both. The hi-rev likes of Delacroix, The Lion In Winter, Roaring Lion, Dancing Gemini and Too Darn Hot either came up short on the day or ran out of puff in a trial.
Masar, Adayar, Auguste Rodin, City Of Troy and Lambourn all provided memorable paydays for those who kept the faith with slow - at least some of the time - striders.
Anthony Van Dyck was an exception to “the rule”, though not by much. Further back, a few Derby winners bucked the trend more clearly, most notably 2011 winner Pour Moi, who strode like a sprinter-miler: I may never entirely understand how that was possible!
With the caveat that we are dealing with probabilities rather than certainties, as we usually are in horse racing, let’s have a look at this year’s Derby cohort.
Whereas the market principals looked vulnerable this time last year, and the lesser-fancied Lambourn was the striders’ horse of choice, this year’s Derby favourite Benvenuto Cellini looks bombproof in that regard.
He has a relaxed and ground-devouring stride, which suggests he will keep on galloping strongly when others have cried enough. That is exactly what happened in the Chester Vase last time when Benvenuto Cellini travelled strongly before powering away late on.
His stride was measured at a mighty 26.7 feet at one point that day, where the population average is under 25 feet. I measured Sea The Stars at a phenomenal 28.6 feet in the penultimate furlong (downhill, on a sound surface, off a steady pace) of his 2009 Derby triumph, by the way.
The problem with Benvenuto Cellini, from a punting point of view, is that a lot of people have cottoned onto him since I put him up at 16/1 for the Derby, based in no small part on striding, last autumn (attheraces.com/blogs/expert-analysis/28-October-2025/bonnard-paints-a-classic-picture).
There is also a chance that a combination of artificial watering and natural rain will turn the ground against Benvenuto Cellini. Epsom reported 25mm of the former last week and 20mm of the latter on Tuesday morning.
Nonetheless, I’m not about to desert Benvenuto Cellini at this stage, though Maltese Cross looks a lively candidate - and a suitable strider - at bigger odds. Four o’clock on Saturday is the moment of reckoning.
The picture for the previous day’s Betfred Oaks is less clear, other than that the filly with the best form in Precise seems an unlikely stayer (and also isn’t a definite runner).
History suggests that Oaks winners can “get away” with quicker striding in what are usually smaller and shallower fields, but they still need to switch off to a degree.
Amelia Earhart managed that in the Cheshire Oaks and came home strongly in front, without achieving a level of form that would usually be good enough to win at Epsom.
That was Amelia Earhart’s sixth run, and it took her five to get off the mark, but she is undoubtedly very useful. However, it is one behind her at Chester that interests me in the Oaks at a bigger price.
A La Prochaine was having just her second outing that day, ambled out of the stalls, and raced in last for most of the way. But she picked up pretty well late on to go third, without quite matching Amelia Earhart’s finish.
There should be more to come from A La Prochaine, if not definitely from Amelia Earhart, and that could be enough to carry the former into a place against some suspect stayers. Her date with destiny comes 24 hours earlier than Benvenuto Cellini’s.
The legendary Italian thoroughbred breeder Federico Tesio will forever be associated with the Derby for his remarks about the existential importance of a piece of wood, the winning post at Epsom.
He also once memorably observed that “a horse gallops with his lungs, perseveres with his heart, and wins with his character.”
Maybe, but it is a horse’s striding - its length and its frequency - which carries him, or her, to victory or defeat, and let us not forget that.
