AMERICAN Pharoah was beginning to look untouchable in the US, but the last weekend saw him slump to a surprising defeat in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga. The horse who beat him, Keen Ice, is no mug, but American Pharoah had thumped him on his three most recent starts. So, what happened?

Sectional-timing theory states that a horse’s overall time will suffer unless it runs efficiently, and the way to determine how to run efficiently is to establish how fast times were achieved at the course and distance previously.