WITH horse racing in many parts of the world shutting down in the face of the global pandemic, including in Britain as from last Wednesday, Ireland kept the show on the road behind closed doors until this Tuesday.

That meant that the Irish flat season got under way at Naas on Monday with a card of decent quality.

First up were the unraced two-year-olds in a maiden which had been won by subsequent National Stakes, Dewhurst Stakes, 2000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes winner Dawn Approach in 2012. In the event, it was one of his sons, Poetic Flare, who justified solid support.

He looked to do it in a useful overall time, also, running a 90 timefigure that is up to scratch for a race of this type at this stage of proceedings, with runner-up Lipizzaner on 88 and third-placed The Blue Panther on 78 (including a slight sectional upgrade).

That was the only race over five furlongs on the card, but a direct comparison between the six-furlong contests won by Woodford General (a maiden, by seven lengths) and Fastar (handicap, by four) has the latter 1.80s faster and on 95 compared to 82. The former might have been impressive, but the clock suggests he was not beating a lot on the day.

Other races took place on the round course, on which the times indicated the ground was probably a bit more testing than just “soft”.

The best winner was Numerian in the Listed Devoy Stakes, in which he took the scalp of last year’s Derby fifth and St Leger fourth Sir Dragonet at a 10-furlong trip which is probably short of that colt’s best. Nonetheless, the time was decent, and Numerian gets a 109 timefigure, good enough to win a weak Group 3.

That term would accurately describe the Lodge Park Stud Irish EBF Park Express Stakes won by Lemista, though she is certainly a filly going places. Her overall time was 1.86s quicker than that recorded by Russian Emperor in a last-gasp win in the concluding maiden, though the latter did carry 10lb more.

Once the numbers have been crunched they point to winning timefigures of 92 for Lemista and 84 for Russian Emperor. Hamariyna, who conceded 19lb (some of it weight for age) to Lemista and was beaten only three quarters of a length, comes out with a healthy 99.

The Madrid Handicap (for three-year-olds only) proved to be as competitive as it usually is, with In From The Cold coming from well back to deny Camachita (who touched 2/9 in running) and returning an 86 timefigure.

Dundalk

There was less to get excited about at Dundalk three days earlier, when none of the winners ran to a timefigure higher than in the 70s.

There was one notably controversial race, however, which was the claimer won by the well-backed Tony The Gent from his stablemate in the same colours (and relatively friendless in the market) Yuften.

This garnered just a 64 rating on the winner, but splits show that Yuften was finishing quite quickly, rather than simply passing beaten rivals, with a 104.3% finishing speed despite later being reported to be lame. The race has been referred to the IHRB.

Hong Kong

The show has been kept on the road in Hong Kong as well, though again behind closed doors, and the Special Administrative Region looks to have a “classic” performer of note in Golden Sixty, winner of the Hong Kong Derby, albeit as a four-year-old.

A neck defeat of Playa Del Puente, a listed winner in Ireland for Mick Halford, is nothing to get all that excited about, but Golden Sixty did tremendously well to catch the enterprisingly ridden runner-up and gets marked up all the way up to 117 on the back of a 21.83s last 400m.

That puts Golden Sixty in the international elite category, for all that he has been beating relatively little.