Antiphon

His record shows 5 wins and 27 places from those 61 races, a win rate of around 8% — roughly 1 in every 12 races. Most of his racing has come at Class 4 level, which sits in the middle of the pack in British racing, and even there he has won just 2 from 27 attempts. What that tells you is that Antiphon has spent most of his career competing against horses at roughly his own level and finding it tough — which makes each of those five wins feel genuinely earned rather than routine. His first came at Chelmsford in December 2021, and his most recent at Windsor in April 2024 — now 27 months ago, which is a long gap by anyone's measure.

His last six runs have produced finishing positions of 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 9th, 10th, and 3rd — a pattern that will be immediately recognisable to anyone who has followed a horse like this. He is consistently close, consistently just not quite close enough. The trainer Michael Keady once described him after a Brighton run as "a legend of a horse, just so easy to train" — and that kind of praise, the sort that focuses on character rather than speed, tells you something about what Antiphon brings to the yard. Some horses are hard work. This one, apparently, is not.

Murphy's yard has sent out 15 winners this season, which suggests it is in decent health, and Antiphon raced just yesterday — still active, still doing his job. His most regular partner in the saddle, Callum Hutchinson, has yet to land a winner together across five attempts. Perhaps it will come. More likely, Antiphon will do what he usually does: run honestly, finish somewhere in the frame, and head home without fuss. At 61 races and counting, that is almost a kind of excellence in itself.