The Verdict Extra: horses to follow, eye-catchers and more

The latest edition of The Verdict, which you can watch above, looked at six races and identified that Starlore who finished fourth in the Solario Stakes at Sandown is worthy of a big sectional upgrade given his surge from last to first before tiring in the final furlong.

He is a good deal better than the bare result and I am rating him as the winner. He should not be written off on the back of ending up out of the frame.

Two more horses of interest have emerged in the past week. They didn’t make the cut for the show and are detailed below.

Medieval Gold finished second in the 12-furlong handicap at Newbury last Thursday and I believe he is a horse to be with when stepped up in trip to 1m 6f and beyond.

This was his fourth career start and his handicap debut off a mark of 67. He was held up in what was an evenly run contest. The winner, Graham, made all the running under a well-judged ride, recording a Finishing Speed Percentage (FSP) of 100.01%.

Medieval Gold was at a pace and positional disadvantage, yet he finished the race to such good effect he was only beaten by three-quarters of a length.

His finishing effort is detailed by the Course Track sectionals. He fired the fastest final three furlongs in the race, clocking 37.38sec. The winner finished off in 38.39ecs.

On the good to firm ground, that difference between the two equates to Medieval Gold being more than five lengths faster than the winner in those final three furlongs.

If you break those numbers down, Course Track tells us that Medieval Gold was faster through each of those individual three furlongs. His sectionals compared to the winner can be viewed by clicking here.

It was a good finishing effort from the runner-up, who was quite simply too far off the pace in an evenly run race.

Medieval Gold is entered over 1m4f at Kempton on Friday with Tom Marquand booked to ride. He is worth putting in your Racing TV tracker.

It can be folly on occasion to ignore a wide-margin winner of a modest contest where the opposition is not up to much. I believe that we should not dismiss the 20-length success of Spectacular Style at Hamilton on Tuesday.

This was a weak 12-furlong novice event that was taken apart by this son of Frankel on his first start at the trip. It would be wrong to dismiss this performance on account of the fact he didn’t beat much. More pertinent is just how fast he was.

His final time of 2min 31.97sec was 0.53sec under standard and was easily the best time on the Hamilton card.

There was no hanging around here. This was not an “easy lead” success. Weigh Anchor, the eventual second, set a searching early gallop and was tracked closely by Spectacular Style. The early fractions were as follows: furlong two 11.52sec; furlong three 11.68sec; furlong four 11.41sec.

Those are stern fractions for a mile and a half novice race. The pace then steadied as they negotiated the bottom bend and ran downhill. At this point the winner took over and quickened impressively through furlongs eight (11.56sec), nine (11.58sec) and ten (11.94sec).

These are impressive numbers for a novice and in my opinion make him a 100-plus rated horse. However, he could be underestimated by the handicapper given the strength of this race.

His final two furlongs of 12.82sec and 14.16sec would have been faster had he not been eased down. The overall Course Track numbers tell us that he is very smart.