Diderot

Trained by Julie Camacho out of Norton in North Yorkshire — a yard that has sent out 46 winners already this season — Diderot has been handled with real patience. Camacho has noted that he can be a little quirky at home, the sort of horse who makes you work for it in training, but that he has visibly matured this year and is settling far better on the track than he used to. That shift in temperament matters. A calmer horse in a race is a more effective horse. His regular jockey Daniel Muscutt has partnered him in 17 of his 26 races and has landed all three wins, which tells its own story about how well that combination works.

Diderot performs best on normal ground — he has won all 3 of his races on a standard surface, from 17 attempts, which is a win rate of roughly 1 in 6 there. Push him onto wet or muddy ground and the results dry up entirely. He is also at his sharpest over shorter distances; trainer Camacho has been candid that stepping up in trip beyond a mile has not worked for horses by his sire Bated Breath, and she is not about to push her luck with that.

His last win came at Chelmsford in December 2023 — nearly 30 months ago now — and his recent form reads 6-5-6-7-9, which is not eye-catching. But his most recent run included a second place to a horse who had won seven times since December, which is the kind of result that looks better the more you think about it. He raced just yesterday, which means he is fit and active. If he lines up at Chelmsford on a normal surface, with Muscutt in the saddle, he is the kind of horse it would be unwise to ignore.