SOME time analysts have taken a remarkably low view of the winning performance of Innisfree in Sunday’s Beresford Stakes at the Curragh. Or it would be remarkable were it not that no data source I have seen mentioned that the mile he ran over was completely different to the mile others ran over on the day.

The Beresford started in a chute on the round, or Derby, course, which usually rides a bit slower than the straight, added to which Google Earth suggests that Innisfree’s mile was about 25 yards longer than the two “straight” miles which followed it.

No great surprise, perhaps, that he ran around 3.0s slower than the maiden and the nursery. There is some guesswork involved, but I came up with a 101 basic timefigure for Innisfree, boosted to 109 on the back of a quite swift 38.18s final three furlongs on what was quite testing ground.

Innisfree and Shekhem (who he beat by a neck, as he had at Galway the time before) do not look top drawer yet, with the latter on 105, but they look a whole lot better than a cursory assessment of their times might suggest, for sure.

There were Group 3 wins at the same Curragh meeting for Speak In Colours in the Group 3 Renaissance Stakes (underwhelming time compared to preceding handicap, 91 timefigure), Kastasa in the Group 3 Loughbrown Stakes (105) and New York Girl in the Weld Park Stakes (100), the first-named and last-named for Joseph O’Brien.

Make A Challenge’s win was in a handicap, rather than a group race, but he would not be out of place in one of the latter judged on his six-length win under 9st 8lb from Ardhoomey, a performance worth a 113 timefigure. The Denis Hogan-trained gelding seemed suited by a first attempt at the minimum trip on this occasion.

Earlier in the week Four White Socks ran easily the fastest of the three extended mile-and-one-furlong winners at Gowran Park to land the Group 3 Denny Cordell Lavarack Lanwades Stud Fillies Stakes by a clear margin and with a 105 timefigure, helped by a rare modest effort from Who’s Steph in fourth.

The surface was a little slower at Dundalk on the Friday evening than it had been for the season opener the week before, which may have helped Blenheim Palace on his drop back from 12 furlongs to an extended 10 furlongs in the Group 3 Diamond Stakes, which he took in a close finish from Numerian and with a 103 timefigure.

The useful Blue Uluru broke 60.0s in winning a minor race which opened the Dundalk card, but that is not all that fast given the calibre of horses involved and I have a maximum of a 93 timefigure for this effort compared to the Ger Lyons-trained filly’s 102 when third at Navan last month.