Gainsbourg

That Pontefract connection is the most striking thing in his record. He has won 2 of his 6 races there, which sounds straightforward enough until you consider that most horses at this level win nowhere near a third of their races at any single track. Something about the place suits him — the tight, undulating circuit seems to bring out a consistency he doesn't always show elsewhere. His very first career win came there in October 2021, and the track has stayed friendly to him ever since. Pair that with wet or slightly soft ground — muddy conditions that many horses hate — and his win rate climbs to 22%, or 2 wins from every 9 races on that kind of surface. For a horse operating mainly at Class 4 level, that is a genuinely useful edge.

The less comfortable truth is that Gainsbourg hasn't won since July 2024 — nearly two years ago now — and his last six runs make for grim reading: finishing seventh, well back, unplaced, twelfth, tenth, and eleventh in the most recent outing. That's a horse who is clearly finding it hard to land a blow at the moment, and his partnership with regular jockey Andrew Mullen has produced just 1 win from their 7 races together. Trainer Daragh Bourke, based up in Dumfries, has had 10 winners on the board this season, so the yard is in decent form — it just hasn't translated for this particular horse lately.

He raced just yesterday, which tells you he is still very much in training and being kept busy. The question is whether Bourke can find the right combination — ideally a wet day at Pontefract — to get him back into the winner's enclosure. It has happened before, and on his best days on the right ground at the right track, he has shown he is capable of it again.