Clouds Hill

The recent form tells an interesting story. Reading the last six races from most recent back — 9, 3, 1, 7, 1, 2 — you can see a horse that blows hot and cold. The two wins and the runner-up finish are sandwiched around a ninth and a seventh, which suggests Clouds Hill needs things to fall right, but when they do, it delivers. That kind of inconsistency is not unusual in a young horse still working out what it wants to do, and at four years old there is every reason to think it has more improvement to find.

Those two wins came at very different times and places. The first arrived at Newcastle in November 2025 on what would have been cold, late-season ground — not the most glamorous of venues, but winning anywhere counts. The second, and more recent, came at Great Yarmouth on 30 April 2026, just four weeks ago, suggesting the horse is in decent form right now. Racing just yesterday, it finished ninth — not ideal — but one bad run rarely tells the whole story, and the trainer will not be hitting the panic button after what has been a productive spring.

That trainer is Charlie Johnston, operating out of Middleham Moor in North Yorkshire, one of the most respected yards in the north of England. Johnston's team has sent out 128 winners already this season — that is a genuinely impressive number, the sort of output that tells you this is a well-run operation that knows how to get horses ready to perform. When a yard is firing on that many cylinders, even a middling horse can find its moment, and Clouds Hill has already found two of them. With a young horse in form, trained by a yard in full flow, there is every chance more wins are coming.