I THINK we are probably all agreed that the picture among the classic male milers is somewhat confused.

Magna Grecia won the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket, but as one of three racing away from the main action, then came only fifth to 16/1-shot Phoenix Of Spain in the Irish 2000 Guineas at the Curragh, before that one in turn finished only sixth to 10/1-shot Circus Maximus in Tuesday’s St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot. Confused? You are not alone!

While time analysis cannot provide all the answers, it certainly helps. The Newmarket race produced a pretty good overall timefigure (123), for all that the race remains difficult to make complete sense of, and the Curragh race produced an even better one (124).

However, the St James’s Palace Stakes was not a proper test, and we know that, despite the difficulties of analysis when the ground is turning softer, because we can work out a finishing speed – expressed as a % of the average race speed – which tells us so.

The last two furlongs went by in a swift 23.65s (105.6 finishing speed %). That was for the well-ridden winner Circus Maximus, who was head to head with the soon-to-weaken Fox Champion at the beginning of the sectional.

King Of Comedy ran 23.05s (108.4%), Too Darn Hot 23.50s (106.4%) and Skardu 23.34s (107.3%) to suggest that all of them could have given the winner more to do another day.

Sectional ratings result from adding upgrades derived from the difference between those finishing speed %s and par (which is 99% for the last two furlongs of Ascot’s uphill mile) to the overall timefigures, and they have Circus Maximus (102 basic, 115 on sectionals) behind King Of Comedy (101/123) and merely alongside Too Darn Hot (100/115) and Skardu (98/115).

Tactical

Perhaps that will prove to undersell the winner, who coped admirably with the drop in trip, but the long and short of it is that Tuesday’s race was tactical and may not work out.

King Of Comedy looks to have some quirks but a bundle of talent too, while Too Darn Hot’s finishing effort, after he got upsides Circus Maximus briefly, was disappointing to say the least.

Most disappointing of all was Phoenix Of Spain, who came only sixth and was reported ‘sore’, but we know that he was being outpaced late on, rather than weakening in a wider sense, and it is worth giving him another chance to repeat his Curragh form in a truer race, and perhaps with him forcing the pace again.