APRIL is the best month of the racing year, to me. Breeding comes to the fore at the breeze-up sales and on the course, and we witness the mixing of top-class jumps action and “they could be anything” flat racing: stirring stuff for the weeks and months ahead.

The flat was out in force at Leopardstown last Saturday, when Broome was a wide-margin winner of the P.W. McGrath Memorial Ballysax Stakes and promoted to third-favourite in places for the Derby at Epsom.

This is not the easiest race to weigh up, for Broome was behind and going nowhere for the first half before sweeping through as others wilted, the sectionals confirming that the leaders went too fast.

However, his overall time was smart – worth 118 plus a 3lb upgrade by my calculations – even though the margins to those he beat should be approximately halved.

My thoughts are that Broome is a pretty good horse, but one who already needs a proper test of stamina (his stride frequency of 2.18 per second and below is what you usually see in one who stays even farther than 12 furlongs) and that Epsom will not bring out the best in him unless the ground is as soft as here, which is unlikely. We shall see.

AUTHORITATIVE

Lady Kaya was an authoritative winner of the 1,000 Guineas Trial, setting even splits under Robbie Colgan and pulling out lots. I have a 107 timefigure on her, which is about 10 shy of a usual Guineas winner but not out of the running for a place.

Lady Kaya’s time was 0.87s quicker than Never No More’s in winning the 2000 Guineas Trial shortly before, but the Aidan O’Brien-trained colt was 0.53s quicker over the final two furlongs and still looks to have potential to improve on his 109 rating (Madhmoon in second is on 110).

Imaging’s win in the Listed Heritage Stakes at the same course three days earlier saw him and runner-up Zihba running to 107 in time terms.