ONE way or another, Goodwood proved not to be a great meeting for overall time performances this year. The sectionals provided by TurfTrax confirmed that a lot of races were less than truly-run, and that tactics often played a big part.

Tactics had helped Big Orange win the Princess of Wales’s Stakes at Newmarket earlier in the month and were a factor in the gelding’s successful defence of the Goodwood Cup. But that is not to say that Big Orange is anything other than a very smart performer and a class apart from most stayers around now.In contrast to Newmarket, Big Orange went hard early on - much faster than he had 12 months earlier - but his jockey (Jamie Spencer this time) crucially managed to get a significant breather into him after halfway so that the horse had plenty in reserve to see off challengers late in the day. A timefigure of just 97 is a reflection of the uneven nature of the pace, not any failings on Big Orange’s behalf.