Epsom Derby Review: The Timeform clock gives a thumbs up to Camelot

Has there ever been a better time to be a Flat racing fan?

Here we are, in the opening week of June 2012, with the best male racehorse for nearly 40 years (Frankel), with possibly the best female racehorse of all time (Black Caviar) and with two horses poised to complete Triple Crowns for the first time in decades (Camelot in the UK and I'll Have Another in the US).

There is also a supporting cast of the likes of Cirrus des Aigles, So You Think, Excelebration, Bodemeister, Wise Dan, Danedream and St Nicholas Abbey: horses that would grace any other season but which are in danger of being relegated to bit-part players in the extraordinary drama that is unfolding in front of our eyes.

Understandably, there is a clamour to see these horses take each other on at the track. And there is also an understandable disappointment when, as seems highly likely with Frankel and Black Caviar, that fails to materialise.

It would be magnificent to have some sort of equine showdown in which an undisputed winner emerged. But the reality is somewhat different, and with reason.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, one-off contests do not necessarily "prove" anything. The outcomes of races between closely matched horses are far too subject to circumstances and to chance for just one race to be trusted to define the relative merits of the protagonists.

The prospect of Frankel and Black Caviar meeting in the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood was magnificent, while it lasted, but the reality is that it might have proved very little. Goodwood is in Frankel's back yard, and a mile is his trip, but he could still have had an off day.

A "best of five" (dream on!), perhaps at a neutral location and over a range of distances, might have settled the matter. Then again, it might not have.

Now the talk is more about the prospect of Frankel taking on Camelot at some stage this season. The circumstances might not be so loaded in favour of one of the protagonists over the other, were that to happen, but the caveats still remain.

While we may all want to see "the ultimate showdown", whatever sport we follow, the worth of champions is seldom best judged in such isolation.

Fortunately, there are alternatives, and those alternatives have become especially sophisticated over the years in the sport of horseracing.

Horses can be measured against: history, which is what will happen to Camelot if he does indeed tackle the St Leger, the final leg of the Triple Crown; they can be measured indirectly against one another and against accepted definitions of performance; and they can be measured against something which does not change over the time, such as the clock.

The clock shows that Camelot ran fast in winning The Derby at the weekend, and it also shows that he can probably run faster still.

The 153.90 seconds he took to complete the twelve furlongs and 10 yards of the Epsom track was faster in both absolute and relative terms than the times recorded by Was in winning The Oaks the day before (158.68 seconds), by St Nicholas Abbey in winning the Coronation Cup on the same day (154.52 seconds) and by the useful Fiery Lad in winning a competitive handicap later on The Derby Day card (156.91 seconds).

Proper adjustment for ground conditions, wind, ability, weight carried, age, and more, identify Camelot's Derby performance as well above ordinary on the clock. His 128 timefigure in the race has been bettered by only Authorized (131 in 2007) and Workforce (134 in 2010) since the 1980s.

It is also possible to establish that he achieved this while running faster late on than would normally be considered optimal for a horse recording such an overall race time.

We have a large body of evidence that a sectional time, from the path entering the home straight, of about 26% of a horse's overall time is optimum at Epsom at a mile and a half. Even after adjustment for a following wind, Camelot (38.6 seconds closing sectional) beat that comfortably enough to suggest that more should be forthcoming.

Sectional times also point to the need to upgrade St Nicholas Abbey's time performance a fair bit, as he came home even faster in the Coronation Cup (37.9 seconds), though that time performance was a fair bit worse in the first place.

And sectional times strongly support the idea that the best filly did not necessarily win The Oaks. The race, run on slightly more yielding ground than the following day, was steadily-run and resulted in the third-fastest finish since the race distance was officially increased in 1990.

The Fugue, hampered early on and still poorly placed turning in. came home fastest (37.9 seconds) and can be considered unlucky. Indeed, it could be argued that Shirocco Star (38.3 seconds) was also superior to the winner Was (38.5 seconds).

One-off events, in the past, present and future, may seem to confirm or refute these impressions, but the worth of gauging racehorse performance against objective benchmarks surely cannot be gainsayed.

And, by those measures, Camelot is a good horse and possibly a great one. He will need to be the latter - or to get lucky in a one-off - if he ever does meet Frankel on the track.