Timefigure analysis of the Craven Stakes winner Field Of Gold with 2000 Guineas in mind

By Graeme North

Horse Racing

Wed April 23, 2025 · 4M ago

Graeme North unpicks the chances of Field Of Gold in this year's Betfred 2000 Guineas before reviewing other recent action from a timefigure perspective.

Mixed feelings over Gold Guineas chance

"There are not many places in England where eight flat race meetings can be held annually without criticism on the score of monotony. Newmarket escapes it because of the fact it has two courses – first the Rowley Mile on which the Two Thousand Guineas and One Thousand Guineas are run in the spring and the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire in the autumn and secondly the July Course, on which two meetings are held each year on the opposite side of the Devil’s Dyke”.

Plenty has changed and not just at Newmarket since those words were written almost a hundred years ago, including the Craven Stakes itself, the race that gives its name to the opening three-day meeting at the home of Flat racing. At one time in its long history a mile-and-a-quarter weight-for-age contest open to older horses, the Craven was awarded Group 3 status in 1971 when the pattern was introduced before being restricted to colts and geldings in 1979 since when it has built a reputation as the pre-eminent domestic trial for the Betfred 2000 Guineas.

That reputation still endures today despite no winner having gone on to success in the Guineas since Haafhd back in 2004 with the 18 who have tried their luck mustering three second places, four third places, two fourths, one fifth, two sixths and six more whose performances I’ll gloss over. So, what are the prospects of its latest winner Field Of Gold, who is now favourite at a general 5/2 after scoring by three and a half lengths, breaking a 20-year hoodoo?

Well, a wide-margin win isn’t in itself a reliable predictor of excellent Guineas performances – of the eight other Craven winners since Haafhd (who scored by five lengths) who won by at least as far as Field Of Gold did and tried their luck in the Guineas only three of them managed to finish in the first three.

And neither has a ‘good’ overall timefigure been an accurate predicator of Guineas excellence either; indeed, the three Craven winners who recorded the highest timefigures and went on to run in the Guineas, Toormore in 2014, Eminent in 2017 and Adagio in 2007 managed no better than seventh, sixth and 12th, respectively.

Initially at least then, the omens look challenging for Field Of Gold, but concentrate on the much smaller number of horses this century who were awarded a Timeform performance rating of at least 118 in the Craven as Field Of Gold was then the picture begins to look brighter - of the eight who ran in the Guineas, two won (King’s Best and Haafhd) with five of the remaining six finishing somewhere else in the top four.

Field Of Gold’s timefigure in the Craven was a middling 101 but rises to 110 when a 9lb upgrade using hand-taken sectionals from three furlongs out is applied. As I wrote last week, however, improvements to the upgrade formula currently being trialled at Timeform that take into account more than just one sectional point, so overcoming one of the main shortcomings of a one-sectional-point model - that the current upgrades are not fully representational of the performance where the race doesn’t begin to properly unfold until after the sectional point - suggest that Field Of Gold’s upgrade could be arguably as high as 17lb, using his time for the final furlong which was the part of the race where he left his rivals for dead in unequivocal fashion.

Both a form and overall time performance worth 118 suggest that he’s going to be there or thereabouts in the Guineas, then, whatever Aidan O’Brien brings over from Ireland without that being a recommendation to take 5/2. If he comes up short in the Guineas, there’s a good chance anyway he’ll win a Group 1 somewhere down the line as did Raven’s Pass, Toronado, Masar and Native Trail, all of whom ran to 118 or higher in the Craven but couldn’t win the Guineas.

Connections of the beaten Craven runners can look to the subsequent achievements of previous also-rans such as Havana Grey, The Grey Gatsby, Nayef, Postponed and Roaring Lion to anticipate that they might also get their day in the Group 1 sun, though with the next biggest upgrade behind Field Of Gold being 3lb irrespective of whether you use a one-point-sectional model or a multi-point one, it might seem a tall ask this year.

I wouldn’t be giving up on Opera Ballo, however, a horse I’ve written about before who ended up racing ridiculously keenly and strikes me as one who might be better suited to seven furlongs on turf with this experience behind him.

Rush form worth following

Four other performances caught my eye from a timefigure perspective on Craven afternoon, with the first of them coming from Double Rush in the opening six-furlong handicap (watch free video replay, below).

He’d flagged himself up of significant interest going forward on his reappearance at Wolverhampton where he rattled home by four lengths in a six-furlong maiden in a remarkably high timefigure for a maiden at the course, 99, secondly only this century there behind the 107 posted by the ill-fated Brave Leader back in 2015, and he remains one to keep firmly on side after following up off a lenient opening BHA mark of 85 in a contest in which his 12.31 final furlong (according to RaceIQ, and 0.29 seconds faster than the runner-up Bob Mali) arguably entitles him to a 4lb upgrade on top of a very useful 103 timefigure, making his new official rating of 90 look almost as soft as his opening one.

With the first three coming four lengths clear of a horse in Gallant, who himself shaped with a lot of promise under a considerate ride, this looks are race that will prove a strong form guide.

The Wood Ditton has something of a chequered history but the first two in 2024 ended up with Timeform ratings of 113 and 124 respectively, the runner-up Lead Artist going on to confirm impressions on the day that he was a better prospect than the winner First Conquest, and I suspect this year’s one-two High Stock and Spy Kingdom are heading that way in the ratings too given their last two-furlong times suggest they are worthy of overall timeratings of 101 and 99 respectively.

I’d also expect Valedictory to prove the best prospect in the confined novice. He had a Timeform ‘large P’ denoting significant expected improvement going into the race and might be deemed to have been slightly disappointing given he was sent off 9/4 favourite, but he motored home with his final furlong coming in at a 10lb higher upgrade than any of the others in the first three (overall timerating could be 102).

His Derby entry looks optimistic and will come too soon anyway but he’s surely up to winning something decent. Grand Grey ran a very fast last furlong from well off the pace in the Group 3 Abernant but he was an in-and-out performer in France last year who couldn’t even manage a win in a listed race and with pretty much everything behind having gone into the race with a big question mark over their heads I suspect the winner Sajir (timefigure 87, hard to make him any higher than 100 on upgrades) didn’t have to improve much if at all to win a substandard affair.

The Gosden team may be looking to break their 2000 Guineas duck with Field Of Gold but they have at least won the 1000 Guineas, albeit not since Lahan in 2000, and would have had another candidate for a race they have been represented in pretty much every year since with Nell Gwyn winner Zanzoun had she been entered but she isn’t.

That said, since Lahan, most of Clarehaven’s runners in the Guineas have failed to make the first three despite no less than seven of that number having been sent off at 8/1 or shorter. Even had she been entered I’d have struggled to make a case for her on the clock given that her timefigure was an unremarkable 75, the lowest of all Nell Gwyn winners this century by 7lb, with very little redeeming in her closing sectionals either, suggesting to me the race this year probably wasn’t up to much.

Though she’s due to head to France for the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches, the French equivalent of the Guineas, it’s unlikely the connections of Zarigana lost any sleep.

If there was a smart time performance (or two) on the day it surely came from Almeric and King Of Cities who filled the first two places in the Feilden Stakes, like the Nell Gwyn sponsored by bet365. Successful at York on the second and final start of his two-year-old season, Almeric left that form well behind to come over seven lengths clear with the impeccably-bred King of Cities in a historically high 112 timefigure, bettered only in the race this century by subsequent Dante third True Story in 2014. Almeric reportedly has the Prix du Jockey-Club on his agenda but both the way he saw this straight nine-furlong contest out strongly as well as his middle-distance pedigree suggest that a mile and a half will suit him even better come midsummer.

Thursday’s Newmarket card was pretty much a case of ‘what you saw you got’ with combined sectional upgrades and timefigures aligning nicely with the performance ratings awarded the horses but one exception had detailed sectionals been available might have been Indian Springs who won the seven-furlong maiden in a 96 timefigure.

He’d run the last two furlongs at Kempton on his debut in December in a time fast enough to have given him a 15lb better upgrade than any of his opponents that day, and he showed a similar turn of foot here to win by two and a half lengths. A 34.8 hand-taken sectional from three furlongs out gives him a 2lb upgrade but seeing as he was doing his best work much later in the race the ‘real’ upgrade is probably a fair bit higher. He looks pattern class and might be one his stable has for something at Royal Ascot at seven furlongs.

Get in the Cosi club

Good Friday was a day top heavy with handicaps, among which the performance of Old Harrovian at Newcastle was notably significant, not just because his rider Oisin Murphy went public afterwards with an apology for a misjudged ride, but because sectionals upgrades suggest that Andrew Balding’s lightly-raced six-year-old should have won quite comfortably had his rider got at him earlier.

Elsewhere, there were a couple of soon-to-be-useful performers (if they aren’t already) on show in conditions races at Chelmsford. First of them was newcomer Cosi Bello in the seven-furlong maiden. Except for the disappointing Vecu those behind hadn’t shown much but Cosi Bello swept past them all from last place in the short straight which is very hard to do at Chelmsford. He emerged with a 7lb upgrade on top of an ordinary 60 timefigure if Timeform’s three-furlong out sectional is used but using the more detailed ones closer to home provided by RaceIQ that upgrade rises quickly to anywhere between 36lb and 42lb upgrade which is much more in line with the visual impact he made.

Indeed, that same RaceIQ data showed Cosi Bello ran the same final furlong time as Timeform 102-rated Sayidah Dariyan who won a well-contested conditions race over six furlongs.

Using her closing sectional and the one that came before, which she also ran faster than her opponents and in under eleven seconds too, Sayidah Dariyah is worth a minimum 29lb upgrade which added to her 77 timefigure puts him on 106 overall; using her final furlong sectional by itself puts her nearer 110. She didn’t fire dropped down to five furlongs for the only time in her life in a listed event at Dundalk on her third and final start as a two-year-old but she’d looked potentially smart on her previous start at Lingfield when scoring with loads in hand and she Group class to me on this evidence.

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