Sectional timings for the Derby suggest City Of Troy isn't the only Ballydoyle star worth following

The sectional timings for City Of Troy’s Derby win on Saturday made for illuminating reading – and revealed the key role played by Ballydoyle’s third string Euphoric.

The finishing speed percentage (which illustrates the time clocked in the closing stages relative to the overall time, with 100 denoting an evenly run race if all other things are equal and anything higher denoting one with a fast finish relative to the race as a whole) for City Of Troy was 108.4, which would generally reveal a slowly run race, but at Epsom, because of the unique nature of this course and distance, that figure is in fact indicative of a strongly run contest. Typically, the configuration of the track leads to a finishing speed of 110 per cent or above, as was the case in the 1m4f handicap run on the same day as the Derby when Relentless Voyager returned a figure of 113 per cent.

Relentless Voyager’s time of 41.55 seconds for the last 3.45 furlongs (the split taken from the path at the top of the home straight) was more than a second quicker than City Of Troy’s 42.7 seconds, yet the overall time for the Derby was still faster by 1.8 seconds, a significant difference, which shows just how much faster they went early.