THE highlight of Sandown’s Saturday meeting, the Tolworth Novices’ Hurdle, did not go the way the market expected but time analysis strongly suggest that the form should be taken seriously.

Summerville Boy went off at 8/1 but emerged the winner from the shorter-priced Kalashnikov, and he did it by running fast from the get-go, if less so at the finish.

Summerville Boy’s overall time was 2.0s faster than that of the smart handicapper Call Me Lord in the finale, which translates to timefigures of 148 and 141 respectively once weights carried are factored in. It was also a remarkable 9.7s quicker than the admittedly steadily-run opener won by the juvenile Crucial Moment.

At one stage, mid-race, the leaders in the Tolworth were a whole flight ahead of the leaders in that juvenile and about 20 lengths ahead of the leaders in the handicap.

No surprise, then, that the closing stages of the Tolworth were rather slow-motion, with third-placed Mont Des Avaloirs worth marking up given how well he went in the vanguard until hitting two out.

That timefigure for Summerville Boy makes him the best of the British-based novice hurdlers seen so far, though still a little behind the best of the Irish. Never mind that he was a maiden over hurdles before this: those efforts came in far more tactical affairs than this one.

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That Call Me Lord effort was still pretty meritorious, and the Nicky Henderson-trained five-year-old was especially strong at the finish: nearly 15 lengths quicker from the second-last (approximately two furlongs out) than Summerville Boy.

The other significant winning time performance on the Sandown card was that of Speredek in the two-mile handicap chase, which came out at 146 despite there being only four runners.

The Veterans’ Chase was less impressive, with Buywise posting just a 120 timefigure, and a fast finish confirming that this was not a great test of stamina in the circumstances.