THAT City of Troy won the Group 1 Coral-Eclipse was of little surprise, but the manner of his success has divided opinion.

At one extreme is the belief that the Derby form is no good and that he is an average winner of that race and no better than the bare result in the Eclipse.

Other opinions expressed see it as a workmanlike performance, filed in a drawer marked ‘job done’. Those of a more charitable nature are prepared to give him another chance to live up to his mighty reputation.

I am not in any of those camps. I believe the real City Of Troy will confound the doubters when circumstances are different. Ryan Moore stated on Racing TV that he thought he would win the Eclipse by 10 lengths and those words should remain firmly stored in our minds, after all, they were uttered by a man of very few words.

It is a sign of his ability that he was able to win in adverse circumstances that did not play to his strengths.

Real deal

City Of Troy is the real deal and the data that he has produced provides cogent proof of that. Let’s start with a look at what happened in the Eclipse.

The winning time was 2m 9.80secs which was 1.66secs under the RaceiQ par, producing a Time Index score of 6.8 out of 10 which compares to the average on the day of 6.1.

Those numbers tell us that City Of Troy won in a good if not spectacular time. Such a time was courtesy of him being rated evenly by Ryan Moore to record a Finishing Speed Percentage of 100.90%.

From that we can tell that rather than quicken and finish fast, he simply kept galloping better than the rest. A look at his sectionals through the final four furlongs provides us with slower splits than we would associate with him from his previous races. A final four-furlong comparison with the Derby is below.

City Of Troy’s final four furlongs

Eclipse Derby

12.38secs 11.74secs

12.22secs 11.82secs

12.77secs 11.99secs

13.79secs 12.76secs

The question is why were his final four furlongs in the Eclipse 2.85secs slower than the Derby? The answer is two-fold.

Firstly, he was keener in the early part of the Eclipse than he was in the Derby using up more energy in the early part of the race than was ideal.

In the Derby, Ryan Moore was happy to sit still in mid-division as they climbed through the first half-mile and City Of Troy relaxed and raced comfortably.

By contrast, in the Eclipse City Of Troy was slowly away. He was fourth fastest in the field to get to 20mph, it took him 3.22 seconds compared to the fastest away which was Ghostwriter in 2.94secs.

We will see the real deal back on faster ground at York

A TARDY start meant that Ryan Moore asked City Of Troy to go forward and track his pacemaker in last Saturday’s Eclips and this was a signal for him to race keenly. Such early zest cannot have helped his finishing position.

Secondly, and most importantly, the soft ground clearly blunted his speed. We know from his two-year-old days that he is a fast horse. On good to soft ground in the Superlative at Newmarket last July, his fifth furlong of 11.43secs and sixth of 11.47secs was too much for his rivals.

In the Dewhurst, he ran faster producing a sixth furlong of 11.07secs. These splits show us how much speed he has, and he just couldn’t show it in the soft ground at Sandown.

It will be argued that relying on those sectionals from his two-year-old days in analysing the City Of Troy of today is misleading. I disagree, because the speed he showed at two does not simply disappear under the spurious header of ‘Not Trained On’ when he is a year older.

The speeds he has reached in his career are detailed below.

Superlative Newmarket - Good to Soft: 39.7mph

Dewhurst Newmarket - Good to Soft: 40.39mph

2000 Guineas Newmarket - Good: 40.39mph

Derby Epsom - Good to soft: 38.53mph

Eclipse Sandown - Soft: 37.37mph

Clearly, he could not use his main asset at Sandown which is the sustained speed that he can show and that is due to his early zest burning petrol and the ground bogging him down.

He is a good moving horse who skips across the ground with little knee curl. He does not grab the ground as horses who like soft ground do, but flicks across it utilising his long stride as evidenced by the terrific footage of him galloping that Coolmore released before the Eclipse. Auguste Rodin moves in a similar way and is completely ineffective on soft ground.

In the Eclipse, City Of Troy had the longest average stride length of 7.37 metres. The next best being Ghostwriter at 7.19 metres. His long stride was accompanied by the lowest cadence in the race.

He recorded 2.18 strides per second compared to the highest in the race of 2.26 strides per second posted by Dancing Gemini and See The Fire. He was trying to float over the ground but lacked the quick cadence to handle conditions.

Horses with a high cadence are much better suited to handling slower conditions. That he hung badly to his right is further evidence that he was not handling conditions very well.

His stride length may have been the highest in the Eclipse, but it was a long way short of what he can do. Below is a comparison of the maximum stride length that he is capable of.

Superlative Newmarket: 7.88 metres

Dewhurst Newmarket: 8.02 metres

Derby Epsom: 7.98 metres

Eclipse Sandown: 7.6 metres.

He can move much better than he did at Sandown but that is dependent on him being able to use his stride and flash his speed.

When he gets faster ground, those attributes will return, and it could be the Juddmonte International where he gets a chance to show what he can do. It is also the case that he needs a strong gallop to allow him to relax better.

He has an ace up his sleeve and that is that he has never raced on fast ground. He faced good ground on his debut and in the 2000 Guineas, all his other races have been on ground with soft in the going description.

When he does get better ground, it will be the day when the Ballydoyle hype will be vindicated and Ryan Moore will be able to eulogise about a wide margin success rather than muse on the reasons why it didn’t happen.