GROUP-RACE action in Ireland and Britain last week was restricted to a trio of third-tier events and the Group 2 Ladyswood Stud Hungerford Stakes at Newbury. That latter contest went to Sir Dancealot under a penalty, and on one level the gelding looked better than ever.

What he did not do, however, was back up that impression with a good time. In fact, he was only fractionally quicker than Boitron had been in a listed race for two-year-olds at the start of the card.

Closer inspection shows that the Hungerford was steadily-run, but not to a major degree, and Sir Dancealot’s 102 timefigure is pretty underwhelming all told. In contrast, Boitron’s race was strongly-run and produced a really impressive 114 timefigure from the winner, joint-best (with Dark Vision) among juveniles at further than six furlongs to that date.

We should hear plenty more of Boitron whose time was also comfortably quicker than that recorded by the useful older handicapper Squats (86 timefigure) elsewhere on the card.

Pincheck was easily best of those Group 3 winners on time, running a 112 in the Desmond Stakes at Leopardstown when beating British raider Masaarr by a clear margin. The Andre Fabre-trained Plumatic ran just an 88 timefigure when winning a muddling Sovereign Stakes at Salisbury, while Hamada looked good but ran just a 101 timefigure when beating Raymond Tusk in the Geoffrey Freer Stakes at Newbury.

Last week may have been low-key in Ireland and Britain, but there were a few other two-year-old performances of note.

One of the biggest stirs was understandably caused by the debut success of Waldstern (a John Gosden-trained Sea The Stars close relative of Waldgeist) at Newmarket, though the colt’s timefigure comes out at an unexceptional 81 with a further boost of four from sectionals.

Khadeem, who had been third to Calyx on his only previous start, looked a class apart in the opener at Newmarket on Saturday and will surely improve lots on his 87 timefigure plus six sectional upgrade when given the chance.

One of the very best juvenile timefigures of the week came on the all-weather at Kempton, where Quiet Endeavour won readily under a welter burden in a nursery, posting a 110 figure.

Archie Watson is a young trainer going places, and he followed up Snowy Winter’s listed win at Gowran (worth a timefigure of 103) with a 100-rated success at the same level from Shumookhi at Newbury, though this is a race which might have been significantly affected by draw/track bias.