THERE is only one place to start on a review of the time performances of the first week in October, and that is at Longchamp for Arc weekend.

Timeform does not publish timefigures for French racing currently, but it does keep a close eye on what times – including sectionals – there indicate about the abilities of the protagonists and the reliability of the form.

Times also inform assessments of the going, and times indicated clearly that the ground was firmer than officially given at Longchamp, on the Sunday but probably on the Saturday too.

A number of race records and course records tumbled, and the only reason more were not endangered is that many of the events were falsely-run. Timeform has called the ground “good to firm” on both days.

The Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe itself was one of those falsely-run events, as confirmed by sectionals. The Timeform-devised finishing speed metric (a horse’s or race’s finishing speed compared to the average race speed) comes up with figures of 107.4% for the race and 108.2% for the winner, Golden Horn, over the last 600 metres.

A finishing speed over 100 shows that the horse or race was finishing quicker than its average race speed. A “par” figure for 2400 metres at Longchamp - the value which indicates an efficiently-run race - appears to be around 102, so the Arc principals were finishing quite a bit quicker than that.

It is, all other things being equal, an advantage to be close up at the beginning of the sectional in such circumstances, and close up (in second, third and fourth respectively) Golden Horn, second-placed Flintshire and third-placed New Bay very much were.

Treve was a few lengths further back, and sectional upgrading (based around the difference between par and actual finishing speeds) suggests she should have run Golden Horn very close indeed. As it is, she made only a little headway against the pace bias and could not quite grab third.

The overall time of the Arc (2m 27.23s) was, unsurprisingly, unexceptional: perhaps in the 110s on the Timeform scale. The sectional performances were much more what one would expect of a race of this calibre.

Golden Horn’s Derby-winning 127 timefigure is the best in Britain and Ireland at further than five furlongs in 2015, and he has, with the exception of York, adapted superbly to more tactical affairs since. Top-class, versatile and reliable, let’s hope we get to see him one more time before he goes to stud.