Contorno

Those two Newcastle wins came on 22 January 2026 and 12 March 2026, and both arrived on normal ground conditions — and that detail matters. When the track is riding as it should, Contorno has won 2 of its 3 races, a 67% win rate that is genuinely striking. Switch the conditions or the venue, and the horse has not troubled the scorer once. It is the kind of pattern that tells you something real about a horse: not a generalist, but an animal that knows exactly what it likes.

The recent form is harder to defend. After that March win, Contorno has finished fifth, then ninth, eighth, and tenth across four subsequent races — a slide that suggests either the horse has found its current level, or that something about those assignments has not suited. It has raced most often at Class 5 level, one of the lower tiers of British racing, and has yet to win at that grade in four attempts, which is a slightly odd disconnect from its Newcastle record.

Trained by T P Tate at Tadcaster in North Yorkshire — a yard that has sent out four winners this season — Contorno has been partnered most frequently by jockey Andrew Elliott, though that combination has not yet produced a win from five races together. The horse raced just one day ago, so it is very much in the thick of an active campaign. Whether Contorno can rediscover the form that made it look so at home at Newcastle remains the question — but the evidence suggests that if the team ever points it back to that track on a dry day, it would be unwise to look the other way.