WE kicked off some weeks of Newmarket action with the Cambridgeshire meeting. There were some very talented two-year-olds running in the graded races, but it was a colt in a lesser race that caught my eye, writes Page Fuller.

Seaplane recorded the highest score of the meeting on our Time Index of 8.6 out of 10. This means that his winning time was the best over the three days, in comparison to historical race times we have seen adjusted for course, distance, going and race conditions. To give it further context, it was 1.18 seconds quicker than the Group 2 fillies’ Rockfel Stakes over course and distance. What made this more impressive was the way he did it. Quick race times are often produced by ‘truly run races’ and races where the leader sets strong fractions often setting themselves up to tire at the end with another horse taking advantage from behind. Seaplane was the only horse to post five sub 12-second furlongs through the race, and hit the line strongly.

He holds an entry over a mile in the Futurity Stakes later in the month. Though he will need to settle if he is going to step up in trip, his stride data is encouraging as he seems to be able to use his stride length to travel through his races rather than his cadence. His average stride length of 7.65m was the largest average stride length of any on Friday.