David Thiselton

The 2026 WSB Met run in 123 seconds was the fastest Met since One World’s 122.48 seconds of 2020.

The race record of 122,1 seconds set by Bunter Barlow in 2001.

Before analysing the 226 sectionals let’s just look at the running order.

Okavango was the early pacemaker before The Equator took it up just as they entered the first turn.

Next best was Legal Counsel and then Native Ruler who was caught wide.

Behind that was Sail The Seas and Eight On Eighteen was on the rail inside of the latter.

See It Again was three wide down the back straight, but fortunately Native Ruler had been kept wide and he was able to follow him.

When Native Ruler managed to get into a two wide position alongside Legal Counsel rounding the turn See It Again was not inconvenienced because Fortune managed to slot in behind Sail The Seas, although not without apparently inconveniencing Garrix slightly.

The stipendiary stewards read that incident differently and have the best view of things. Garrix was rousted when See It Again began moving across and he cramped Cosmic Speed on his inside before being snatched up to avoid See It Again.

The Stipendiary report simply read: At the 1000m COSMIC SPEED (G Lerena) took an awkward stride when tightened for galloping room between the inside running rail and GARRIX (K de Melo).

Behind Cosmic Speed was Gladatorian, who had jumped slowly and lost a length.

The Real Prince was sitting in last place and Craig Zackey had likely read it correctly, because the sectionals had been fast.

Using a sectional timing method of viewing each sectional as a percentage of the average speed for that section, Okavango did the first sectional in 116% and followed with fast sectionals of 90%, 90% and 91%, which took him to the 1200m mark.

With The Equator in front it slowed down either by accident or design as Okovango’s next three sectionals were 96%, 98% and 96%, which took them to the 600m mark.

If Callan Murray’s role on Okavango had been to set a pace for See It Again and Eight On Eighteen, who are from the same Snaith yard and under the same Nick Jonsson ownership, then he had done a fine job as he had gone fast enough early to ensure that stamina was going to be one of the chief credentials required in the run in, and he had not gone so fast that any of the others could afford to ignore him and dictate their own pace.

This was unlike the Hollywoodbets Durban July in which they had gone at a crawl, and had thus favoured a horse who stayed but who also had speed, which was better for The Real Prince than Eight On Eighteen, especially at the weights.

It was also unlike the L’Ormarins King’s Plate in which the pacemaker Dave The King had gone so fast that he and those who had followed him, like Jan Van Goyen and Legal Counsel, were sitting ducks for the class acts in the field.