IT never ceases to amaze me when people say that “times mean nothing in racing”. You could replace the word “times” with the word “speed” (distance divided by time) or “lengths” (a distance covered in a finite amount of time) and the oddity of the initial statement becomes even more apparent.

For what is racing but a manifestation of which horse runs quicker or slower than another and by how much it beats or gets beaten by another, both of which can be expressed in terms of time?

The problem is that a time viewed in isolation can tell you little or even mislead. You need to put them into context and you sometimes need to look beyond the obvious when drawing conclusions.

I was reminded of this when someone pointed out to me that “times mean nothing in racing” after I had observed that leading Triumph Hurdle hope Redicean had run 1.9s slower overall and a near identical time from three out in winning the Adonis Juvenile Hurdle as Global Citizen ran in winning the Dovecote Novices’ Hurdle later on last Saturday’s Kempton card.

On the face of it, that is a useful 144 time from Global Citizen (who carried 1lb more) and a rather less useful 131 from Redicean. It usually takes a figure of around 150 to win a Triumph.

It is not Redicean’s fault, but he has still to run a good overall time despite winning all three of his hurdles at this track, having got involved in a race in which the leaders went too fast on his debut then one in which they went too slow next time.

INTERESTED

However, things get a bit more interesting when you take a more nuanced view of what he did in sectional terms on this latest appearance. It transpires that the early pace in the Adonis was fast, the middle section was slow, and that Redicean took off again at the end, but that happened a fair bit after he jumped the third last flight that tends to be used for closing comparisons.

Redicean was 0.6s (roughly three lengths) faster than Global Citizen between the last two and a massive 1.1s faster up the run-in. If the Triumph Hurdle were to be run in this sort of uneven fashion there would be few if any who could match Redicean for raw speed. But it probably won’t be.

Nonetheless, I have adjusted that basic 131 timefigure to 138 on the back of those sectionals, and that makes Redicean a more obvious contender for a couple of weeks’ time, if still behind a few in my view.

Times mean something in racing, but you need to be careful – as I initially wasn’t – to spot the ability that is sometimes expressed in small sections of a race and not just where you have become accustomed to measuring it.