MINDING’s return to action at Naas on Monday in the Camelot Irish EBF Mooresbridge Stakes was an impressive one in terms of what she beat and how she beat them, with a three and a half length defeat of last year’s Irish Champion Stakes sixth Moonlight Magic pretty close to her best on the face of it, but it told us nothing much on the clock.

The overall time was poor – worth a timefigure of just 58 – in large part down to Minding’s being able to dictate a slow pace and then come home quicker in the last half-mile than any other horse for races starting on the round track. But one thing the filly definitely still has is a turn of foot.

Incidentally, all “official” times at Naas were returned to 0.1s, rather than the customary 0.01s, which suggests they are manual, not electronic, and need further validation. I made Minding’s time about 1.0s slower than given.

Rehana was about 0.8s slower for the last four furlongs than Minding in winning the Canford Cliffs Irish EBF Athasi Stakes at three furlongs shorter, but had gone harder prior to that and recorded a useful 105 timefigure, albeit in what looks a fairly weak group race.

The Aidan O’Brien-trained juvenile Dali is being spoken of as Royal Ascot material following his win here, but it was another falsely-run race (about 2.0s slower than the handicap which followed it, and worth a timefigure of just 43), and runner-up Hawaam would have prospects of turning the tables with this experience under his belt.

A much better effort on the stopwatch was put up in the opening maiden by Alpha Centauri, whose 95 timefigure makes her the fastest juvenile seen in Britain and Ireland at the time of writing.

That is only about 10 shy of what might be needed to win the Albany Stakes at the Royal meeting and is a really good figure for a debutant.