THE wind has been much in the news of late, with Storm Ophelia belying its innocuous-sounding name by delivering gusts of over 100 mph and wreaking havoc in its path.

The wind was nowhere near as strong as that at Newmarket for the Future Champions Meeting a few days before, but – at the runners’ backs – it undoubtedly played its part in some particularly quick times: there were a handful of course or age-group records over the two days.

Time analysis takes the wind into account, or tries to, and establishes which performances really were fast in relative terms and which were not.

Time analysis says that both the Group 1s – the Fillies’ Mile won by Laurens and the Dewhurst Stakes won by U S Navy Flag – were fast in the way that matters, with the latter now the best time performance by a juvenile in Ireland and Britain this year.

U S Navy Flag may have been an unlikely champion two-year-old only a matter of a few weeks ago, but that is where he stands now unless something usurps him in the coming weeks. He ran fast early and middle in the Dewhurst, if less so at the finish, to shave 0.02s off the previous two-year-old course best and return a timefigure of 121.

Mendelssohn (114: the joint-second-fastest timefigure by a two-year-old colt, alongside Expert Eye), Seahenge (107) and Threeandfourpence (106) followed him home in a historical 1-2-3-4 for trainer Aidan O’Brien.

U S Navy Flag is bred to stay a mile, and possibly be suited by it, but what won him this was the speed he showed mid-race – including three successive sub-11.0s furlongs – rather than stamina at the end of it. He ran the final furlong in a fairly slow 13.0s, but by then his rivals were spent. He is good enough to go close in a Guineas but may need to be ridden with a bit more restraint against stouter stayers.

TRAFFIC

Laurens had been a bit outside the juvenile course record for a mile the day before, but she ran a 110 timefigure and did it in similar style to U S Navy Flag, from the front.

That said, she was almost certainly fortunate to hold September (also 110 on the day), who was efficiently ridden in sectional terms but got stuck in traffic before flying at the finish.

There is little between the stable-companions Happily, Magical (both 113) and September (112 at Royal Ascot) on time, but all are adrift of 118-rated Clemmie, another Aidan O’Brien success story in what is proving to be an epic season.