AFTER watching how many of this season’s Group 1 contests were run, you could wonder when the season’s battle plans are being drawn up at the Ballydoyle round table in the spring, if certain roles were already dished out to the cast of 2026 going into battle.

Private Action – your duty will be deployed as pacemaker. Private Puerto Rico, forget your Group 1 intentions, you will be drafted as a second stage attack to confuse the enemy. Private Hawk Mountain, you too will be on standby for the same role.

All the while Gstaad, Constitution River and Benvenuto Cellini are the star performers to land the killer blows.

While there was top class racing and the many worthy winners at York this week, the running of the Juddmonte International and Legends Global Yorkshire Oaks produced a fair degree of negative comments on social media and also in many discussions in the general racing analysis.

It was around the use of pacemakers and their roles in adding or subtracting to the result of a race, if tactics of one might hinder the chance of another. The issue was also broadened into who is a pacemaker, or who is a pace chaser, one perhaps not expected to win but who can play a decisive role in how the race turns out. And especially when very few stables can run three or more horses in a Group 1.

For the Ballydoyle team, who ran three in the Juddmonte and two in the Yorkshire, we have been here before after Royal Ascot and Goodwood amid the Bow Echo/Gstaad rivalry and the role of previous Group 1 Puerto Rico in the two Group 1 mile contests. The running and riding did go to a stewards’ intervention at Royal Ascot and ended in a rider ban.

Aggressively ridden

Of course, pacemakers were a topic last year for other training establishments, Qirat making all in the Sussex Stakes and Birr Castle holding on for third in the Juddmonte after being aggressively ridden to aid Ombudsman at York.

In the end, in the two Ascot Group 1 mile contests this year, and the two Group 1s at York, with pacemakers or not, Ballydoyle runners did not ultimately win any of them. Bow Echo three times proving too good for Gstaad, Constitution River seeing too much daylight and running too freely at York, while Minnie Hauk appeared to be beaten by better fillies.

What rankles is not just the use of pacemakers but that even good horses, horses with definite each-way chances, often appear to be used in those ‘supporting’ roles.

No questions had been asked on Minnie Hauk’s below par run in the King George, beaten 17 and three-quarter lengths over a distance more suitable than when she was a fine Royal Ascot second to Ombudsman.

Aidan O’Brien said on Racing TV before the Yorkshire Oaks on Minnie Hauk: “She’s had a few in and out runs…for different reasons, we’d be able to able to answer the questions, we felt there were plenty of reasons.”

Now, it may not be Aidan O’Brien’s job to tell all but perhaps we are moving to a stage where it should be on the record from a stewards’ inquiry after a particularly poor run and where the tactics seemed to have been out of kilter with recent runs. Punters deserve this.

Aidan also said - in an ITV pre-Juddmonte International interview - that the pace will be strong and even. It has been frequently stated by the trainer in defence of using a pacemaker that they help everyone in the race.

Driven clear

Many were unhappy with how both Group 1s panned out at York, and the vigour in which Sugar Island was driven furlongs clear, against the lack of vigour used on the obvious pacemaker Action in the Juddmonte.

Action had finished second in the Dante, two and three quarter lengths behind Item and ahead of Christmas Day.

But interestingly, in the Irish Derby the comment-in-running was: “Dwelt start, towards rear and pushed along, headway and led after 1f,” Action was slowly away and still driven to lead, unlike at York.

In the King George – “soon led, increased tempo 6f out” he also took a pace-making role.

On Wednesday, he was not pushed forward. No one can say that Action did anything to hinder Ombudsman, just that he raced close to the favourite, probably ensuring that Ombudsman would have to come up the rail, and wasn’t ridden as expected. It might have even counted against Constitution River. In the end, it was more likely the ground conditions that hindered the favourite.

Legitimate

Sugar Island was a legitimate runner on merit in the Yorkshire Oaks on her third in the Oaks at Epsom. There she had led at a normal pace and was the best-placed finisher of the three Aidan O’Brien runners when she went off at 25/1.

She was last of 10 in the Irish Oaks (20/1) with race comments “Disputed lead, led after 2f,” so she was a pacemaker there also, and one of five runners from her trainer.

She was 100/1 on Thursday and bustled to the front and driven clear, hard ridden from before the turn into the straight. It did not appear that she was creating an even pace scenario. It didn’t sit well with many onlookers. Perhaps the best horse won, Kalpana was favourite, but her effort may have been compromised slightly by Colin Keane being forced to commit early. Similarly, Sparan Nua had been forced wide in her run in the Irish Oaks by pacemakers on the retreat.

Both French Group 1s at the weekend currently have three runners from Ballydoyle, at least one presumably a pacemaker.

Racing really does not need all this debate and hints of unsporting tactics. Perhaps more onus should be on the stewards on the day to ask and keep record of the tactics and instructions issued, when there are multiple runners from one stable and horses are ridden differently than previously.

If, on all recent form, a horse appears to be in a top race as a pacemaker, and he then doesn’t fulfil that role, should the stewards then not ask a question on the ride?

Or if a horse is to be used in a pace making role, should that not be made clear before the start? It’s a topic that is getting more and more attention and not in a favourable way.