Sectional Debrief: Kempton, Wednesday July 10

It would be difficult to imagine a much less eventful meeting from a sectional point of view than last night's at Kempton, where only one of the seven races qualified as falsely-run. The exception, as the finishing speed %s in the figures below show, was the race won by Zamoyski, and the overall time of that was not good enough to get excited about any of the individual performances in it. 

The modest overall times of Mexicali's and Noble Gift's races are less easy to explain, given unexceptional closing sectionals, though Noble Gift does at least emerge a 2 lb better horse than the bare result in coming from further back at the sectional (approximately 4 lengths behind at that juncture) than other winners on the night. It should be noted that the surface was not quite so fast as usual. 

Musicora's win in the six-furlong maiden was just about the pick of the winning efforts on time, but it was achieved in notably efficient style under Richard Hughes and this five-length winner is hardly likely to catch punters unawares next time. 

Fortunately, this blog gives an opportunity to catch up on a sectional performance from a few weeks back that did not get captured in this series. Figure of Speech's debut win on the Newmarket July Course came during Royal Ascot week but would not have been out of place at the Royal meeting itself. 

The son of Invincible Spirit posted a useful overall time and even stronger sectionals, running the last 3f in under 35.0s, winning by four lengths and earning a most impressive sectional rating of 102. 

Figure of Speech returns to the course this afternoon for a much tougher assignment in the Group 2 Portland Place Properties July Stakes (due off at 14:10 BST) but looks a very strong contender on sectionals. By way of comparison, his nearest rivals in the betting, Sir John Hawkins and Astaire, have recorded sectional ratings of 90 and 96 respectively. 

Better late than never, and all that, but Figure of Speech is added to the sectional "to follow" list just in time in anticipation of a big run later today. 

The list is also represented by Space Ship in the 10f handicap at Newmarket at 15:15 BST and by Masquerading in the 16:15 BST 12f handicap at Doncaster. Both look worth an interest at the likely odds.    

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