As we build up to the third round of the Star Sport/ARC/LPS Derby third round preview on Friday, we thought we would have a bit more fun with some of the ‘halfway’ times collected by Mark Pierrepont over the first two rounds.

Skywalker Logan 29.05
Queen Beyonce 29.27
Magical Bale 29.30
Clonbrien Prince 29.42
Droopys Expert 29.42
Dorotas Wildcat 29.43
Droopys Davy 29.46
Seaglass Phantom 29.46
Worseforwear 29.46
Priceless Blake 29.48
King Sheeran 29.50
Dower Rory 29.52
Lemon Shane 29.54
King Dylan 29.58
Droopys Trapper 29.59
Antigua Sands 29.59
Desperado Dan 29.61
Lemon Ronald 29.61
Liberty Hawk 29.61
Antigua Romeo 29.62
Roxholme Glory 29.62
Ballymac Anton 29.63
Bockos Doomie 29.64
Roxholme Jim 29.67
Ballymac Osby 29.69
Cooneen Jack 29.70
Emers Cookie 29.72
Slaheny Star 29.73
Jaytee Taylor 29.75
Volcanic Reef 29.75
Ballyanne Sim 29.76
Front Edge 29.77
Droopys Verve 29.81
Nice Charmer 29.81
Bull Run Button 29.83
Jelly Flood 29.83
Paganini Show 29.84
Plaza Lep 29.84
Ballymac Tas 29.85
Swift Jim 29.85
Lemon Express 29.87
Knockduff Declan 29.92
Master Reed 29.99
Raise The Stakes 30.00
Wildfire Jimmy 30.00
Dorotas Woo Hoo 30.05
Headford Maurice 30.26

This table is more of a curiosity than a serious tool for punters, but we think it is interesting anyway. The theory behind it would be familiar to plenty of owners and trainers, ‘what would he have done if. . . .?’

Basically, we have split each of the runners performances into two halves – to halfway and from halfway – and added the better two performances together. In the case of the track record run of Skywalker Logan, he was, unsurprisingly, at his best in both halves of his first round heat.

But a whole string of runners produced a better time from mixing and matching the first half of one performance with the second half of another.

This is what we found. . .