Digital

Start with the ground. On wet, muddy conditions Digital has won 2 of just 5 races — that is a 40% win rate, a staggering number in a sport where even the very best horses rarely win more than a third of their races. Most horses have mild preferences; Digital has something closer to a superpower. When the heavens open, this horse becomes a completely different proposition.

Then there is Hamilton Park, where Digital has won 2 of 7 races. Seven races at one course is enough to call it a pattern, and winning two of them is a record that demands respect. Some horses just take to a particular track — the shape of the bends, the camber of the straight — and Hamilton seems to bring out something extra here.

The partnership with jockey James Sullivan spans 23 races together, producing 3 wins, which works out at roughly 1 in every 8 — matching the horse's overall win rate almost exactly. They know each other well by now, and trainer Ruth Carr, operating out of Stillington in North Yorkshire, has had a productive season, sending out 62 winners from her yard. That is the kind of season that suggests a yard firing on all cylinders.

Recent form tells a sharper story: two wins from the last six races, including a victory at Newcastle just six weeks ago. The most recent run was a seventh-place finish, but this horse has won a Class 2 race at Southwell — one of the better grades in British racing — so the ceiling is proven. Digital is not a horse to write off. Catch it on a wet afternoon at the right track, and it can be something special.