MOST sectional upgrades occur when a horse runs steadily early and faster later but it works the other way round also. If a horse runs inefficiently, it does not matter at what stage of the race it happened, it will affect that horse’s overall time and its chances of winning or running well.

Exhibit A in the “went too fast early” case is this year’s Preakness Stakes, in which Nyquist squandered any chance he might have had of adding the second leg of the US Triple Crown to the first (the Kentucky Derby) by setting suicidal fractions in the opening quarter of a mile.