Asteverdi

The most striking thing about Asteverdi is how much it seems to love wet ground. In conditions that suit many horses poorly — slightly soft underfoot, the kind of surface that separates horses who genuinely handle it from those who are just tolerating it — Asteverdi has won 2 from 4 races, a 50% win rate. That is a remarkable number. To put it plainly: when the ground is right, this horse wins half its races. That alone should make any race on soft ground worth watching closely.

Most of its career has been spent at Class 4 level — the middle tier of British racing, competitive without being elite — where it has won 2 of its 10 races at that level, or 1 in every 5. Its first win came at Musselburgh in September 2023, and its most recent at Nottingham in October 2024. That Nottingham win is now 18 months in the past, and the last 6 races have brought nothing better than a third place, with results reading 3-14-5-4-5-3 most recently. The 14th-place finish stands out as a bad day at the office, and the overall run of form suggests a horse that is placing consistently but can't quite land the winning blow right now.

Regular jockey Kieran O'Neill has been aboard for 5 of those races without a win between them — 0 from 5 is a partnership that hasn't clicked yet, at least not in terms of results. Asteverdi raced just one day ago, so it is clearly still active and being targeted at races. The question is whether James Owen can find the right combination — soft ground, the right trip, the right day — to get this horse back to winning ways for the first time in a year and a half.