Crunching The Numbers: Kap Vert win a collectors' item

The Coral Scottish Grand National at Ayr on Saturday was unusual on various levels.

Kap Vert recorded the slowest winning time since 1989, and the novice was also a rare six-year-old to prevail. In addition, there were no fallers or unseated riders for the first time since 2012.

The only other six-year-olds to win in the past 80 years have been Earth Summit (1994), and Macdermott (2024). The former went on to make history by also winning the Welsh National (1997) and Grand National (1998), a feat that even Red Rum did not accomplish.

It seems fanciful to think that Kap Vert will emulate Earth Summit, but he has time on his side, not to mention the requisite stamina and jumping prowess to be a force in similar staying events for years to come.

He also starts from a low handicap mark, having run off a rating of 129 at the weekend. And with little separating the first three home, in a renewal run on deep ground where only six completed, the handicapper cannot be too punitive.

The Welsh National would seem a logical objective next season, not least because that Chepstow contest is usually also run in the mud.

Kap Vert’s winning time of 9min 5.23sec on Saturday was the first time this century the 9min mark had been breached. In fact, the previous slowest had been 8min 36.22sec in 2014, with seven winners in this period being a minute or so swifter.

Deep conditions led to a slow-motion edition where jumping was always going to play a significant part. It has rarely done so in such transparent fashion, as Kap Vert fended off Git Maker by a length and a half.

The data reveals Kap Vert, despite his inexperience, jumped best of the field at 11 of the 27 fences and gained 24.45 lengths in the air. He lost ground at just one of the 27 obstacles (the 24th), with his average speed recovery (0.7sec) and speed lost (3.09mph) being best.

It would not have been a great surprise to those who have studied his earlier efforts since switching to chasing. He lined up with the second highest Jump Index of 7.9, having gained 42 lengths with his jumping in his previous four starts over fences.

By contrast, Git Maker’s pre-race Jump Index rating of 6.1 made him among the most inefficient in the field, and his bottomless stamina and courage could not make up for his deficiency in this department as he sought to go two places better than he had in 2024.

He did not jump best at a single fence, lost ground at 20 and, in total, forfeited 13.26 lengths. His average speed recovery was double that of the winner (1.41sec) and his speed lost was 5.55mph (worst of the whole field).

In summary, Kap Vert jumped almost 38 lengths better than him.

Lowlights for Git Maker were his errors at the at the 21st fence, when he lost 9.79mph, and the 23rd, when he lost another 9.11mph. He got scores of 2.2 and 2.7 out of 10 for those efforts, with overall Jump Index score being just 5.3. Even for him, that is low.

This is not the first time that the Jamie Snowden-trained ten-year-old has gone close in such a big staying contest and there’s an obvious temptation to believe it is only a matter of time before he wins one. After all, on this evidence, he would only have to put up in an average round of jumping to do so.

However, RaceiQ was founded more than three years ago and in that time has ten chase performances of Git Maker in its database. He has lost ground every time, surrendering more than 110 lengths. It will be a surprise if he now ever irons out his jumping issues and, as such, is always going to carry a wealth issue.

The main supporting race on the card, the Scottish Champion Hurdle, changed dramatically at the second last when Tutti Quanti, the favourite, was under pressure and fell when in the lead, bringing All In You to a standstill.

All In You was travelling powerfully in his slipstream at the time but lost 9.82mph in the incident and it took him 3.16sec to get back up to speed. He ended up being beaten 6½ lengths into fourth but would have been second, at worst, but for being so badly hampered.

To my mind, he’d have won, although I should volunteer he was the RaceiQ nap selection. He jumped the second last just behind Dedicated Hero, the eventual winner, seemingly travelling the better of the pair, but by the time they reached the last was at least eight lengths adrift of him with the prize gone.

All In You is a horse with lots of gears, sweeping from last to first at Sandown in early January, having almost done the same the time before at Ascot, when fluffing the final hurdle cost him the spoils. A decent pot will surely drop his way when he gets the rub of the green, either over the coming weeks or next campaign.