Getaway Charlie

The recent form makes for modest reading. In the last six races, Getaway Charlie has managed one second place but otherwise struggled to land a blow, finishing out of the frame in the other five. The horse is now returning from a break of roughly four months, which at least means the yard — sorry, the team — will have had time to plot a fresh approach. Whether the rest has done any good remains to be seen.

Timothy Doyle trains the horse from his yard in Moyne, County Tipperary, and it has been a quiet season for the stable — just two winners sent out so far. Mr D Doyle has been the regular jockey for most of Getaway Charlie's career, riding in 15 of the 23 races together. That partnership has produced the horse's one and only win, but at a win rate of 1 in every 15 rides together, it is fair to say they are still waiting for the magic to strike again. Punchestown, where that win came, might be worth keeping an eye on if the horse heads there — sometimes a track just suits a horse in ways that are hard to explain, and that day in October 2023 clearly brought out the best in this one.

At nine years old and with a long absence behind it, Getaway Charlie is not an obvious bet for anyone hoping to make money. But sport is rarely just about the odds, and a horse that has kept finding places without winning tells its own story — competitive enough to keep showing up, just waiting for one more day like Punchestown in 2023.