Annexation

The win came off the back of confidence. His trainer, Tony Carroll, who trains from Cropthorne in Worcestershire, noted that Annexation had won at Bath the day before — though that race came with the sort of footnote that tells you everything about a competitive stable. The jockey who rode him to that first victory, Matthew Lloyd Slater, could not do the weight at Nottingham the following day, so Carroll turned to Jack Doughty instead. It was the right call. Doughty has ridden Annexation 11 times, winning once, but he got the job done when it mattered.

For all his years at the track, Annexation has a clear sweet spot: the mile and one furlong to mile and two furlong distance. At that trip, he has won 3 of his 14 races — roughly 1 in every 5 attempts — a win rate nearly twice his career average. It is the kind of pattern that suggests his last victory was no fluke. Yet he has not won since October, now ten months cold. At ten years old, and with such a long run without success, this horse is perhaps best remembered not as a consistent winner but as a late bloomer who briefly proved he belonged in better company than his record might suggest.