NEVER mind the width, feel the quality. If ever you needed an illustration that excitement and intrigue in horse racing does not require lots of runners then it was provided by last Saturday’s Betfair Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown.

There were just four runners, but they were a fascinating mix of established top-notchers and young pretenders, and of front-runners and stalk-and-pounce types.

In the event, it was the proven top-notchers who came to the fore, in the shape of Un De Sceaux and Altior, with the latter delivered late to defend his unbeaten record over jumps with one of his most memorable wins yet. At the line, Altior had four lengths to spare over Un De Sceaux, with Saint Calvados and Sceau Royal put firmly in their places behind.

In amongst the praise justly showered on Altior and on the race itself, the Tingle Creek does provide a bit of a headache for time analysts. Altior’s overall time was fully 4.8s slower than that recorded by Dynamite Dollars in the Henry VIII Novices’ Chase two races earlier, but there had been heavy rain in between: how much should be allowed for an apparent deterioration in conditions?

There is no definitively correct answer to that question, but we can establish how well-run both races were through sectionals, and therefore to what degree the respective overall times are likely to have reflected the winners’ abilities.

By identifying truly-run races at the course and distance from the past, it is possible to establish what proportion of a race should be spent in each fence-to-fence section.

It is then a piece of simple arithmetic to apply that to the overall times in this instance.

This reveals that the Henry VIII was strongly-run and the Tingle Creek truly-run to halfway. The former steadied going to three out (the Pond Fence), whereas the latter increased in tempo approaching the Railway Fences resulting in a slower finish.

However, the long and short of it is that both races were run in fashions which should have produced pretty good overall times – there was certainly no slacking – and so we can attribute most of the unexpected difference in those overall times to the surface becoming significantly softer in the interim.

My best estimate is that Altior ran a 167 timefigure – very good but a bit below his 174 best – and that Dynamite Dollars (who carried 5lb less) managed 150. Un De Sceaux ends up on 161 here and Ornua, runner-up in the Henry VIII after going fast up front, on 147.

This is one of many instances in which our knowledge of the protagonists, aligned with sectional evidence, points towards a more realistic appraisal than simply taking the times as read. A strict interpretation of the raw times of the two races had Dynamite Dollars about 24lb quicker than Altior.

I doubt both Dynamite Dollars and Ornua are suddenly superstars, or that both Altior and Un De Sceaux suddenly are not. Future evidence will either confirm or deny such assumptions.

The challenges with time comparisons between the Tingle Creek and the Henry VIII extended to other races on the Sandown card and to some events elsewhere.

The novice I Can’t Explain ran the two-mile hurdle at Sandown on Saturday 3.1s quicker than the useful handicapper Man Of Plenty later on, but apparent ground deterioration prompts very similar timefigures (126 and 127 respectively) by my calculations.