THE majority of post-race comment about the fillies’ listed mile at Ascot on Friday concerned the demotion of the first-past-the-post Namhroodah and the misfortune of the original third Irish Rookie.

For what it’s worth, I think Jamie Spencer on the former may have been fortunate that the stewards found his ride to have been merely careless: an appeal would open the possibility of a harsher sentence.

Be that as it may, credit should go to Spencer for a notably enterprising ride prior to that incident. He set solid, but not overly strong, fractions and got quite a break on his rivals before being closed down late on.

Sectional analysis suggests that both Irish Rookie and Red Box should have beaten Namhroodah (which they did only through the intervention of the stewards), and beaten her comfortably.

Namhroodah’s finishing speed (expressed as a % of her average race speed) was a near-perfect 101.7%, and her timefigure of 105 adds further substance to the notion that her jockey judged the pace very well indeed, whatever else unfolded.

There can be many reasons why horses do not use their energy efficiently – often enough nothing to do with jockey error – but the consequences are much the same whether it occurs with a Derby winner or a green newcomer. The horse’s overall time will suffer, and improvement may well be forthcoming under different circumstances.

NEWMARKET

Two of the most eye-catching sectional performances recently came at Newmarket’s meeting last Friday and Saturday. On the former day, Misty Lord got too far back in a slowly-run mile handicap, on what was just his second start, before rattling into second behind Red Tea. His last three furlong of 34.62s was the fastest in the race and swift for the conditions: Misty Lord has every prospect of going one better before long.

You will not see many more promising debuts than that of Hydroxide in the opener on the Saturday. The Hugo Palmer-trained son of Lope de Vega squandered several lengths leaving his stall, then ran green in rear before putting in a terrific finish to run the long-odds-on D’bai to a short head.

Hydroxide’s last three furlong was calculated at 34.78s, in a race in which nothing else managed under 35.3s, and he looks a banker for a similar event. Indeed, there must be every chance he will be plying his trade in better company sooner rather than later.