Daring Plan

The patience required to keep faith with a horse like this deserves a mention. Sue Gardner's yard has sent out 7 winners this season, which suggests a stable in decent health, but Daring Plan was not among the easy ones. Lucy Gardner, who has partnered the horse in 14 of its 18 races, had never won on board before this breakthrough — 14 races together without a victory is a real test of belief. That the win finally came for the same partnership makes it a more satisfying story.

What makes the Uttoxeter win interesting is where it sits in the record. Most of Daring Plan's career has been spent at Class 5 level — broadly the lower end of the sport — and across 9 races at that level, the horse had not won once. Winning elsewhere first, rather than at the level where it races most often, hints that the horse may simply suit certain tracks or conditions better than others, and Uttoxeter appears to be one of them. Recent form shows a win, a second place, and a fifth across the last six runs, which for a horse with this record represents a genuine purple patch. At eight years old, Daring Plan is not a young horse building toward something — but right now, it is running as well as it ever has.