Fairly Fulling

The stumbling block, however, is clear from one troubling stat: the horse is 0 wins from 11 races in Class 5, the level at which it most frequently competes. This is a horse that simply has not learned to win at its natural grade. That makes the recent victories — both achieved at different tracks — look like rare moments of fortune rather than evidence of consistent improvement. The latest form, spanning the last six runs, reads as 8-1-4-–-1-4: only two wins and two fourth-place finishes in that sequence, with a blank race somewhere in the middle. It is erratic stuff, the kind of record that keeps an owner guessing what version of the horse will turn up on race day.

Trained by Susan Corbett at Otterburn in Northumberland, Fairly Fulling has most commonly been ridden by Ross Chapman, but that pairing has failed to click — zero wins from eight races together suggests either the horse runs poorly for him or Chapman has simply not been aboard on its better days. With the yard enjoying a solid season, producing 11 winners, Fairly Fulling remains the awkward customer: capable of winning, as it proved at Newcastle and Perth, but seemingly unable to crack the code at the level where it races most often.