Blackwater Lilly

The numbers are honest about that. One win from 18 races is a win rate of around 6%, or roughly 1 in every 18 outings. Seven places along the way suggest the ability is there — Blackwater Lilly is not disgraced regularly, just rarely quite good enough to get to the front. The last six runs read 3-6-4-4-7-9, which charts a gradual drift towards the back of the field. That is not a horse hitting form; it is one that has been finding things harder as the season has gone on.

Where Ellison's team has chosen to aim Blackwater Lilly is also telling. The horse has run seven times in Class 5, which is the lower end of the British racing ladder, and has not won once at that level. It has actually performed better over longer distances — races of two miles or more — winning 1 from 10 at that trip, a 10% win rate. That one win from ten long-distance races still represents the best version of this horse, and it is no coincidence that the Bangor victory came over that kind of test.

Craig Nichol has been the regular jockey, riding in 6 of those 18 races and winning once — a partnership win rate of 17%, or 1 in every 6 rides together. That is meaningfully better than the horse's overall record, and Nichol clearly knows what he is working with. Brian Ellison himself is having a productive season — 47 winners from the Norton yard this season — which makes Blackwater Lilly something of an outlier in a generally successful string.

At six years old and with just the one career win standing 11 months ago, Blackwater Lilly is not a horse anyone is building big plans around. But it is active, it has beaten rivals before, and a longer trip on a good day could always bring that Bangor form back to the surface.