Cosmic Clarets

The recent form tells an interesting story. Go back a couple of months and Cosmic Clarets was finishing tenth and twelfth — well beaten, out of the picture. Then came two runner-up finishes in a row, then two sixth-place efforts, and it raced just yesterday, which means this horse is very much in the thick of its season right now. The upward curve from those double-digit finishes to consecutive seconds is the kind of improvement that catches the eye, even if the wins have not followed yet.

Oisin Orr has been the regular partner, riding Cosmic Clarets in seven of its ten races without managing to get the horse over the line. Seven rides together and still searching for that first win is a test of patience for any jockey-horse combination, but the fact that Orr keeps coming back suggests the team believes there is a race to be won here.

The trainer is Richard Fahey — or more precisely, the father-and-son operation of Richard and Peter Fahey at Musley Bank in North Yorkshire. This is not a small backyard outfit. The yard has already sent out 23 winners this season alone, which puts them firmly among the more productive stables in the north of England. When a yard of that quality keeps running a horse, it is usually because they can see something worth persisting with. Cosmic Clarets has not won yet, but it is housed somewhere that knows how to produce winners — and at three years old, there is still time.