IF ever there was a good example of three races run over the same distance on the same card offering up vastly differing pace scenarios then Sunday’s Arc trials cards at ParisLongchamp provided it.

As usual there were three pattern races – the repositioned Grand Prix de Paris, the Prix Vermeille and the Prix Foy – carded over 2400m, and the on-screen splits that were displayed are reproduced below.

Of the three races the Grand Prix de Paris, won by Mogul, was run in the fastest time: 2m 24.76 to be exact, which is 1.66 seconds (or around nine lengths) faster than the Prix Vermeille and 8.51 seconds (or around 50 lengths faster) than the Prix Foy.

The Grand Prix was largely well run from the outset, the leader Nobel Prize (a stable-companion of Mogul) running the first 1000m around two and a half seconds faster than the Vermeille and around 10 seconds quicker than the Foy.

The pace in the Grand Prix didn’t falter over the next 400m either, the leader covering that section well over a second faster than the following races. From that point, the Grand Prix was the slowest of the three races as the front-running Anthony Van Dyck turned up the heat in the Foy, running each of the last three furlongs a fair bit quicker than the leaders in the other two races with his 11.14s final furlong about as quick as you can get over the Arc trip.

So what does this all mean in terms of upgrades and what might it tell us? In winning his race in a last 600m finishing speed of 104.3%, Mogul was deserving of a very small upgrade – around 1lb by my calculations using my own pars. Tarnawa, the impressive winner of the Vermeille was worth a 19lb upgrade on the back of a 111.6% finishing speed while Anthony Van Dyck was worth a 45lb upgrade on the back of a 116% or thereabouts finish.

Bearing in mind Mogul trumped two Derby winners comprehensively, his connections were surprisingly lukewarm about a tilt at the Arc, but they have a much more plausible candidate in Love and perhaps they are aware he isn’t suddenly a very different model to the one well held twice by Pyledriver already this season.

Serpentine possibly had excuses on account of it being his first run since the Derby but there would appear none for the increasingly disappointing English King who had sidestepped the St Leger to run here.

Vermeille

The Vermeille was run at a more ‘normal’ French tempo, if the pace was still on the steady side, but the sectionals only confirm what was apparent visually – that Tarnawa was by some way the best in the race, emerging with a 5lb better upgrade than runner-up Raabihah who tracked her into the straight.

For all Tarnawa looks to have come back a better filly than the one that disappointed on the big stage a couple of times last year, and mindful slow-burning Aga Khan homebred fillies are always to be respected when the Arc comes around, she still needs to be supplemented and it might well be that the Prix de l’Opera is the race she ends up running in.

In some ways, the most interesting race was the Foy after which the growing consensus was that Stradivarius had announced himself as a bona fide Arc candidate by ‘outperforming’ in a race that was far less of a test of stamina than normally confronts him.

What that analysis ignores is that Stradivarius is atypical in staying terms – in other words he’s a stayer with a very good turn of foot and is a very fast horse in his own right. Anthony Van Dyck had found at least one to beat him in all seven races since landing a substandard 2019 Derby and, for all he had everything his own way in front and was best placed to dictate the sprint for home, Stradivarius was always shadowing him.

Indeed, if there’s one horse that arguably deserves to come out of the race with more credit than the winner it’s Nagano Gold who was around two and a half lengths down at the point the sprint began yet had halved that deficit by the line.

In the sometimes-misleading context of a very slowly-run race that performance earned him a 7lb higher upgrade than Stradivarius, but unless I have missed something, I haven’t seen or heard the Czech-trained group-placed but never-a-group winner touted anywhere as the likely contender for the 2020 Arc.

CHINDIT put himself in the Guineas picture with a ready success in the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster last week. His winning time was getting on for a second faster than Wichita (carrying the same weight) managed later the same day and he ran the last three furlongs even faster still.

There’s a relationship between precocity and ability the two-year-old weight-for-age scale doesn’t always properly reflect that can on occasions exaggerate timefigures two-year-olds appear to achieve in pattern races, but even so a figure of 114 (together with a 5lb upgrade) establishes him among the best so far.

In contrast, the May Hill was a modestly-run affair that went to the once-raced unbeaten Indigo Girl in a timefigure of 67.

She was well on top at the line, but although she looked to win with a bit to spare, her 8lb upgrade is slightly underwhelming.

Tight finish

A bunched finish to the Flying Childers went the way of Ubettabelieveit in a timefigure of 77, but of more interest for the long term was the performance of New Mandate in winning the Listed Flying Scotsman Stakes. He came clear with the runner-up Laneqash in a smart timefigure of 108, upgraded to 113 after sectionals.

would have ast seven furlongs

THIS weekend sees the start of the new point-to-point season with fixtures at Ballingarry and Oldcastle. Attempting to evaluate the merits of point form by recourse to the clock might be something of an unconventional and niche approach, but it’s little different to traditional timefigure analysis under Rules and in some respects is more straightforward as nearly all races on any day at a given meeting are run over the same distance.