MUCH of the racing in Ireland and Britain last weekend had the feeling of the calm before the storm that is the York Ebor Meeting. There were, nonetheless, a few performances of note, including on the clock.

In particular, the Group 2 Hungerford Stakes at Newbury on Saturday proved to be a proper contest won by a very smart horse in Massaat, and in a good time.

The colt’s 1m 25.84s was fastest of a trio of seven-furlong races on the card by a long way and translates into a timefigure of 120, the joint-fourth-fastest by an older horse in Ireland and Britain this year. Runner-up Librisa Breeze had few excuses this time, other than that he could possibly have done with being a little closer mid-race, and managed to run a personal best of 115.

Massaat has been lightly raced since second to Galileo Gold in last year’s 2000 Guineas at Newmarket and remains with potential at or just below the top level if trainer Owen Burrows can keep him sound.

The winning effort of Defoe in the Geoffrey Freer Stakes earlier on the same Newbury card saw him halve in the betting for the St Leger at Doncaster to around 7/1 but was not as meritorious in timefigure terms at 101.

Stradivarius (118) leads the way among those generally quoted for the final British classic, but I see no need to get involved at this stage.

At a slightly lower level, the card at Ripon on Saturday made for some interesting comparisons, especially among the six-furlong races.

Contrary to what can be read elsewhere, Teruntum Star’s time in winning the consolation for the Great St Wilfrid was about 2.0s slower than the official 1m 09.96s but is still a decent one (107 timefigure). Mattmu ran a similar time in the main event but carried 8lbs less and so comes out slightly worse at 102.