Tale of the clock: How Ombudsmen prevented lightning striking twice

Early in the straight in the Juddmonte International, it flashed through all our minds: “Here we go again”.

Lightning looked like striking twice in the space of a month, with a 150-1 pacemaker on the brink of another almighty shock. Meanwhile, several jockeys loitering behind him were perhaps already fearing the thunderbolts that were going to be heading their way.

York's famous straight has delivered us decades of drama and delights, but nothing ever quite like this.

The pacemaker in this instance, Birr Castle, trained by Andre Fabre and ridden by Rab Havlin, was going further and further clear, while those behind him seemed to be operating in slow motion.

Had the gap got any bigger, William Buick and Ryan Moore, aboard leading fancies Ombudsman and Delacroix, would have needed binoculars to see exactly where the hare had gone.

Just a few weeks after Qirat had won the Sussex Stakes at 150-1, when apparently supplemented into the race to tee things up for Field Of Gold, trained by John and Thady Gosden, an unlikely action replay was unfolding before us.

Except this time, the ignored leader could not hang on.

Ombudsman, in the same Godolphin silks, got to him inside the final furlong and motored away, while Delacroix also belatedly ended up getting past him. Birr Castle had to settle for third, but the third prize of £142,000 was a decent bonus for a horse supplemented for £85,000.

It was a case of all’s well, that ends well for the boys in blue, even though they risked red faces. Anybody just lazily flicking their eye down the results at the end of the day would never have known a fraction of the story.

“I’d imagine Monsieur Fabre was getting a little excited,” Rab Havlin, the rider of Birr Castle, told Racing TV’s Lydia Hislop afterwards.

Buick and Gosden found themselves on an uncomfortable fairground ride. They both used the same word when reflecting on the huge lead that Birr Castle opened up. “Dangerous,” they observed. York enjoys spinning some tune to greet their big winners and the Tannoy announcers could have been forgiven had they belted out Electric Six’s Danger! High Voltage at halfway.

Gosden admitted that two out he thought the game was up. Buick did not go quite so far, choosing to compliment Havlin on getting the fractions “spot on”.

As ever, the RaceiQ data helped us fill in the gaps when it came to those fractions.

Birr Castle led soon after the start and was already almost half a second ahead of Ombudsman after the first furlong. In the next half-mile, Havlin alternated furlongs that were either fast or very fast, while Buick, on the favourite, went mostly “slow” in the slipstream of Japanese challenger Dannon Decile, who had used up plenty of energy before the stalls even opened.

Remarkably, after six furlongs, Birr Castle was 4.48sec ahead of Ombudsman, winning the first six rounds (furlongs) in potentially knockout style. He was 0.47sec quicker in furlong one, then 0.73sec, 1.03sec, 1.08sec, 0.92sec and 0.25sec swifter through the next five.

In a sport often determined by split-seconds, this was a chasm. And the chasing pack only had half a mile to bridge it.

The tide finally began to turn in furlong seven. Ombudsmen clocked 11.41sec, while Birr Castle could manage only 12.15sec. But the gap was still huge.

Ombudsmen was in full flight now, though, and zoomed through furlong eight in just 10.94sec. Birr Castle only had a 12.39sec in his locker. 

The penultimate furlong took Ombudsmen just 11.22sec, but Birr Castle’s petrol gauge was flickering. Finally, his early exertions were beginning to tell and he took a smidgeon over 13 seconds. Those who had supported him down to about 2-1 in-running knew they had been decieved.

Ombudsman also dipped just under 12 seconds in the final furlong, with Birr Castle (13.17sec) finally waving the white flag.

The winner's Finishing Speed percentage was 109.56%. In other words, he ran almost 10% quicker in the final three furlongs than he had for the rest of the race. Had Havlin dabbed on the brakes after opening up his chunky advantage, then perhaps the result would have been different.

Aidan O’Brien, the trainer of Delacroix, lamented the pace that his colt was left chasing. Queue another pacemaker down the road. And perhaps more unexpected twists and turns before the season is over.