Last year's Veterans' third the one to side with at Sandown

It tends to be assumed that the final of a series is stronger than the qualifiers. That is not certain in this year's Veterans' Series Final.

The qualifier at Chepstow in October was a strong race, fought out by Vieux Lion Rouge, On Tour and Joe Farrell. It was relatively well run, too and yet they finished fast by the standards of the track. Strong form, in other words, even on the clock.

The horse to take from it was not the winner Vieux Lion Rouge, who has since run a modest race under his favoured conditions in the Becher, but runner-up On Tour.

Furlong-by-furlong sectionals, taken as a group and compared with calculated pars, show that On Tour ran the race less efficiently than Vieux Lion Rouge. The measure used is the signed mean of squares; it is not very snappy, but in short a race in which they closely shadowed the pars would return a value close to zero, while a fast time would give a negative value. At Chepstow, Vieux Lion Rouge returned 0.17, On Tour 0.22.

On its own, these values give just a hint of what transpired. On inspecting individual furlongs, we see the difference more clearly.

Twice, from 7f to 5f out and again in the fourth-last furlong, On Tour made big moves forward from a position further back in the field. He also missed two out, which on the analysis cost him more ground than visual impressions suggest, before rallying strongly. Vieux Lion Rouge was clearly more efficient at the business end and, given there was a neck between them at the line, that might well have made the difference.

Both horses are just 1lb higher now. On the figures it could be argued that both are still well-treated, but especially On Tour. With Richard Johnson and a visor employed this time, he seems likely to be ridden with enough dash to make a real impact.

All data courtesy of Total Performance Data, whose tracking covers more than 20 courses in the UK and North America