Ararat

His most recent victory came at Chelmsford on the all-weather track in August, a Class 2 race that his trainers Rachel Cook and John Bridger flagged as a significant moment. They had long seen Ararat as an underachiever—a horse with genuine ability who let them down more often than not. That Chelmsford win, they felt, finally showed what he could do when conditions suited him. The stable had noticed something crucial: Ararat runs best on fast, dry ground or the all-weather surface. On normal track conditions, he has won 3 of 12 races, a respectable 25 per cent win rate. Get him on firmer terrain and he genuinely fires.

The horse has a clear course speciality at Southwell, where he has won 2 of his 5 races there—a striking one-in-two record that marks him out as a track where something clicks. His last win anywhere came at Southwell in October, a full ten months ago, and since then he has not broken through despite staying active. His most recent six runs have brought nothing but placed efforts and distant finishing positions. That drought, though, sits against a career spent mostly in Class 4 company, where he has won 3 of 15 races (20 per cent), suggesting he operates at a respectable level without being a top-tier performer.

Jockey Jamie Spencer has ridden him five times, winning once, and the yard remains ambitious enough to have entered Ararat for a classified race at Ascot. At this stage of his career, on normal or faster ground, at tracks where he has form—that is where Ararat earns his keep.