NEWMARKET’s QIPCO 2000 Guineas on May 6th just got a whole lot more interesting.

While the race had a one-sided look over the winter – with the champion two-year-old of 2016 Churchill favourite by a sizeable margin – that colt has not yet been seen while two very credible challengers emerged in last week’s British trials to add to the recent Prix Djebel winner from France, Al Wukair.

That last remark is not based merely on the visual impressions created by Eminent in winning the Craven Stakes and by Barney Roy in winning the Greenham Stakes, but by the telling tale of the clock. Both colts ran seriously fast in both a historical and a relative sense.

By my reckoning, Eminent ran the fastest Craven Stakes in history, and his winning time of 1m 35.15s for the Rowley Mile has been bettered only once (by Mister Baileys) in the 2000 Guineas itself. Barney Roy’s Greenham winning time under conditions that were not quite as quick has been surpassed in that race by only two horses, Dick Turpin and Muhaarar.

Eminent has been given a 115 Timeform timefigure, which could easily have been a bit higher still without causing any other performance on the card to look suspiciously high, and that is already the equal of what Churchill and Caravaggio achieved at their best at two years.

A son of Frankel, Eminent is unbeaten in two runs and looked like he was only just getting going at the end of a well-run mile at Newmarket.

That said, Barney Roy was even more impressive in the Greenham, all in all, scything down the promising Dream Castle in the final furlong to run a 119 timefigure which is the best by a male of his generation to this stage.

Barney Roy had won at a mile on his only start at two years and seems very likely to be suited by a return to the classic trip.

One feature of Barney Roy’s performance was how powerfully he was striding out by the finish. Measuring stride lengths using video-editing software is in vogue during the Breeze-Up Sales season, and my calculations have Barney Roy with an average 24.4ft stride in the final furlong.

By way of comparison, Eminent was 22.6ft in the Craven, Churchill was 23.6ft in the Dewhurst, Rhododendron was 23.0ft in the Fillies’ Mile, Daban was 22.1ft in the Nell Gwyn and Dabyah was 23.5ft in the Fred Darling.

Some adjustment needs to be made for topography (stride lengths will be slightly shorter at Newmarket than at Newbury), ground and race distance, but it can be said that figure for Barney Roy is of the magnitude usually associated with a top performer.

As racing analyst Byron Rogers wrote (having considered the strides of Secretariat, American Pharoah, Frankel and Kingman, among others) “the really good horses will generally have an average stride length of 24 to 26 feet.”

You don’t need to know Barney Roy’s stride length to realise that he ran fast at Newbury, but it helps in explaining why he did, and it offers clear encouragement that he may be able to run faster still at Newmarket in just over a week’s time.

I reckon Barney Roy is a good bet for what now looks a fascinating Guineas, and that Eminent will run well in that race also.