Courtesy of Thomass
It was 2'20''60 ... or 2'21''36. With the help of Franco Raimondi and Bruno Barbereau, who released their times, we rechronomed the Japan Cup Almond Eye (Lord Kanaloa) to check if it was a running start and know which could be in this case the distance of the run up. By translating: does the chronometer work when the stalls are opened, or does it begin at the beginning of the official distance, with the stalls (running start and run up) moving backwards and, in this case, a more flattering time. At trot, it would be the principle of the departure volte, slower than a departure launched to the autostart ...
The clock of Franco Raimondi indicates, by starting it at the opening of the stalls, a time of 2'21''36. Bruno Barbereau, for his part, counted a run up of about 10 meters before the start of the chrono, or 0.7 seconds: this is consistent. But whether it's 2'20''60 or a time closer to our 2'21''36, it's a world record.
Stronger than Asidero. It is not easy to navigate the different records on 2,400m grass. The previous record we found is the one won by Asidero (Fadeyev), in 2'21''98. The name of Asidero does not necessarily speak to everyone: he is the winner of Gran Premio Carlos Pellegrini (Gr1) in 1999, in San Isidro. Almond Eye, whether with or without running start, beats it widely and it makes more sense to compare the chronos of Almond Eye and Asidero based on that of running start. In South America, the run-up is about fifty meters.
Compared to the other records of great races ... The time achieved by Almond Eye is extra. We wanted to compare it to some of the biggest Grs1 in the world for 3 years and over 2,400m, from Europe to South America via Australia and the United States. Almond Eye is clearly in the lead, followed by Asidero, the previous distance recorder. In the races we have selected, it is the Qatar Prize of the Arc de Triomphe which gets the best ranking for a European race: a particular Arc, since won by Found (Galileo) and ran to Chantilly.