Last weekend we witnessed the three best performances of the National Hunt season so far. Lossiemouth, Gaelic Warrior and Fact To File all brought their A games to the track on their seasonal reappearances.

The analytics tell us that they are all at least as good as ever which is a sobering though for potential opponents in championship races this season. The slight caveat must be that they all had quite tough races which is usually the case when a horse produces outstanding data.

Last season in this column I promoted Lossiemouth as a potential Champion Hurdle winner and had she run in the race she would have won it.

Nothing has changed my mind in the interim, and if anything, this performance strengthens her claim to be a champion hurdler. This was her eighth Grade 1 success and in terms of the data produced is arguably a career-best performance even if she did get her own way in front.

Lazy analysis

When horses make all the running, I often hear the tired and lazy analysis that suggests they did it the easy way. Clearly this is nonsense. Assessment of whether a horse achieved an easy victory or had to work hard is pace dependant, not simply reliant on them just being in front.

Lossiemouth made all and won easily but this was not the easy way. In terms of physical exertion, she was made to run hard as evidenced by her finishing speed percentage (FSP) of 100.19%.

This was not a case of her dictating a steady pace and then increasing the tempo in the final four furlongs. If that had been the case, her finishing effort would have been stronger, a likely FSP of well above 100%.

The fractions were strong, even with Paul Townend judging the pace perfectly in what was in effect a solo time trial that her rivals could not cope with, all of them recording very slow final splits, as detailed by their final four furlongs splits and FSPs.

Lossiemouth: 60.29s FSP: 100.19%

Glen Kiln: 63.71s FSP: 96.42%

Ndaawi: 67.12s FSP: 92.60%

Irancy: 67.71s FSP: 92.00%

Some may argue that Lossiemouth didn’t beat much and therefore the form is worth nothing, but it doesn’t matter what she beat, it matters how fast she ran, and she was relentless from start to finish under an aggressive ride.

If anything, this performance shows how versatile she is. She has recorded some very fast finishes in her career, albeit on better ground, and is fully capable of cruising through a race and then quickening as she showed at Cheltenham and Aintree last season with FSPs of 110.36% and 110.8% respectively.

Her jumping was excellent. She was quick and efficient over her hurdles recording a jump index of 9.3 (a career best). She did guess at the fifth, but it did not cost her at all, losing just 1.92mph through the jumping envelope with her average for the race being 2.31mph.

Career best

There is no doubt that Lossisemouth will be better suited to faster ground and under a more patient ride, but she was very good here, arguably better than ever with a career-best Timeform rating of 158+.

She would win the Mares’ Hurdle doing handsprings again but would be a more than legitimate contender for the Champion Hurdle.

THE highlight of the Punchestown meeting came from Lossiemouth’s two stablemates in a superb renewal of the John Durkan Memorial.

Gaelic Warrior saw off Fact To File in a stirring duel, with the runner-up emerging with plenty of credit according to the data, given how the race was run.

This was a a strongly-run race courtesy of Gaelic Warrior who made all the running and established a 12-length lead at one point. He was rated well in front by Paul Townend, recording an FSP of 101.06%, and allowing a horse of such talent a big advantage under a well-judged ride would normally lead to a wide-margin success. That Fact To File briefly headed Gaelic Warrior and was only beaten by a neck, says plenty about his raw ability.

Fact To File had to do plenty of work to get to his stable companion and in so doing compromised his finishing effort. He went in pursuit of Gaelic Warrior with seven furlongs to run and was faster than the winner through each of the subsequent furlongs bar the last where Gaelic Warrior rallied to get back in front.

After a mile and a half Fact To File was 3.35s behind Gaelic Warrior, a deficit that he whittled down to 0.64s with four furlongs to run and 0.08s going into the final furlong.

This represented a big effort from Fact To File to just get to Gaelic Warrior and it is no surprise that when it came to the final furlong, the petrol gauge was on empty.

Both jumped superbly putting up career best Race IQ Jump Index scores as below and it was notable that Gaelic Warrior did not go out to the right at his fences as can sometimes be the case.

Gaelic Warrior: 9.1 (Career Score 8.1)

Fact To File: 9.5 (Career Score 8.5)

The 9.5 recorded by Fact To File was the best jumping performance of the weekend and ranks as the 10th best in the Race IQ database in which there are details of 31,000 performances. The data is clear that under different circumstances Fact To File would have won, but the gutsy attitude displayed by Gaelic Warrior made for a race that will be hard to better as a spectacle this year.

GREY Dawning was a cosy winner of the Grade 1 Betfair Chase, redemption for defeat last year under a much more patient ride from Harry Skelton. This was straightforward as regards the data in a weak race for the grade. There is one interesting piece of data that emerges from the race that is worth highlighting.

It is rare that we see a horse quickening at the end of a three-mile chase on easy ground and even rarer for a horse to quicken well enough to record a final furlong that is faster than the penultimate furlong, but that is what Grey Dawning did. His final two splits were 16.11s and 15.72s. At Haydock, only 87 horses have been able to record a faster final furlong than penultimate out of a sample of 800 races including hurdles and bumpers, and this shows just how much Harry Skelton kept in the tank. Grey Dawning jumped fast and accurately recording a jump index of 8.0 out of 10 which is slightly better than his lifetime score of 7.7 and his highest since winning the Grade 1 Turners Novices’ Chase at Cheltenham in 2024 (9.0)

Grey Dawning will need significant improvement to win a Gold Cup but it is possible that, under similar patient tactics, he could smuggle his way into third or fourth.