The Verdict Extra: two horses to follow based RaceiQ data

On The Verdict this week, I concentrated on the Irish Champions Festival where the best time performance was, unsurprisingly, achieved by Economics in what was an attritional Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes.

It proved to be a grind through the final two furlongs after strong early fractions sapped the finishing efforts out of all the runners. 

Both Economics and Auguste Rodin had tough races, but both have time to recover before we are likely to see them again in the QIPCO Champion Stakes (Economics) and the Japan Cup (Auguste Rodin).

Aside from those I mentioned in The Verdict, I also have a couple of extra horses for your Racing TV Tracker from last week that may go under the radar given the outstanding action that we saw over the weekend. They are both worth following next time out.

Race: First in the .

This filly made her Nursery debut last Saturday and bolted up off a mark of 60 and the data suggests she will still be well ahead of her mark when reassessed.

She was always prominent over this five-furlong trip and surged clear of her rivals in the final three furlongs. She was the fastest horse in the race through each of the final three furlongs and was the only horse to dip under 11.00s in the fourth furlong and the only horse to dip under 12.00s in the final furlong. This amounted to her producing a Finishing Speed Percentage (FSP) of 104.13% which is better than the Race IQ Par for a race of this standard at Mussleburgh which is set at 101. 65%.

Her final two furlongs of 22.82s was 0.60s faster than the runner-up which equates to 3 ½ lengths on good to firm ground. That is a significant margin in a sprint race and describes just how superior to her rivals she was.

This dominant performance was achieved whilst being the slowest horse in the race to reach 20mph. The Race IQ data shows that she took 2.89s to reach 20mph and it can be inferred that with a faster break from the stalls she would have been even more impressive.

Below is the Race IQ summary of the race: