Sectional Debrief: Irish Oaks Day 2016

“Aidan O’Brien wins Darley Irish Oaks for fifth time…” was a predictable enough headline before this year’s fillies’ classic, but “…with Seventh Heaven” certainly wasn’t.

O’Brien saddled four in all, including the odds-on Royal Ascot winner Even Song, but it was Seventh Heaven, an also-ran in The Oaks at Epsom when last seen, who emerged victorious. Even Song could manage only a well-beaten seventh.

Even Song was not the only filly to run poorly in Saturday’s race – the Royal Ascot runner-up Ajman Princess came home a distant last – but it would be a mistake to think that the form amounts to little. The overall time was much quicker than those of the other two 12f races on the card (with the round course dolled out significantly) and sectionals point to its being a true test.

The following give the individual sectionals for each filly, along with their speeds for the last 3f expressed as a % for their time overall.

The par for 12f at the Curragh with the rail out as it was on Saturday is around 105%. In other words, you should expect horses to finish rather quicker than their average speed for the race overall if they have raced efficiently.

Seventh Heaven – who was several lengths back turning in – finished quicker than par, and gets a small upgrade to what already looks a decent time, while those immediately behind her ran close enough to par not to warrant being marked up.

This makes for an interesting contrast with the sectionals for the Irish Derby over the same course and distance three weeks earlier, when all of the principals finished much faster than par and received significant upgrades.

It also makes for some interesting comparisons and contrasts with recent runnings of the Irish Oaks, which have varied between falsely-run and truly-run.

This year’s Irish Oaks, while not quite run in perfectly efficient style, was more truly-run than the majority of recent ones: Covert Love and Snow Fairy won their Irish Oaks in similar fashion. Even Song and Ajman Princess would doubtless have had more of a say another day, but Seventh Heaven deserves plenty of credit to have won as she did.

Good though Seventh Heaven’s win was, it was not the best sectional performance on the card, and not by some way. There had been the Group 2 Kilfrush Stud Sapphire Stakes over 5f earlier on, and it saw what might well have been a return to her brilliant best by Mecca’s Angel.

It was not so much the mare’s overall time – though 58.61s is pretty fast on officially “good to yielding going” in anyone’s book, even with some help from the wind – but that closing sectional which catches the eye.

The opening quarter of a mile was not especially quick for the grade and conditions, but that final 3f most definitely was. Mecca’s Angel was forwardly placed at the start of it – which helped – but absolutely blitzed her rivals in the final furlong. No horse had bettered 33.98s for the last 3f at the Curragh this year: every one of the six runners in this race did.

It is possible the ground had been too firm for Mecca’s Angel when she had been second 12 months earlier, but she absolutely does not need it soft, and her best efforts have in fact been on ground like this. She ran 57.24s – equivalent to a timefigure of 129 – when winning the Nunthorpe Stakes at York last year, and she might well have done something similar with a similarly fast early pace here.

Supporters of Brando could understandably feel disappointed that he did not keep closer tabs on his main rival, and his sectional of 32.92s results in a sizeable upgrade also, to a figure of 118 in his case. But the best horse won, and it would take a very good sprinter indeed to have beaten Mecca’s Angel in this scenario.

The other Group race on the card saw Peace Envoy lower a couple of big reputations in the Group 3 Anglesey Stakes, though his time was almost 2 seconds slower than that of the following sprint handicap, and the colt’s closing sectional (34.84s) was not quick enough to make him look especially smart.

That sprint handicap – the valuable Scurry Handicap – was the one race on the card in which the leaders clearly overdid things. Perfect Pasture posted a smart time but was helped by being four to five lengths back at halfway.

Perfect Pasture comes out best in the race anyway after the number-crunching which gives rise to those sectional upgrades, but third-placed Distant Past, tenth-placed Sors and thirteenth-placed Kibaar all paid for doing too much too soon (especially Sors, who led) and get significant mark-ups.

The opening maiden, won by Arcada, has been won by some good horses, and there were plenty whose pedigrees made them credible candidates to do the same. But an unexceptional overall time and little in the way of fast sectionals suggests that this might not have been as good a race as it had looked on paper.

Runner-up Capri (35.64s) and fourth-placed Beast (35.89s), both of them newcomers unlike the winner, were fastest late on, for what it is worth.