Handle With Care

The broader picture is more modest. From 18 career races, Handle With Care has won three and been placed eight times, a win rate of roughly 1 in every 6 races. That puts it in the solid mid-range of racehorses — reliable enough to trust, but not a star in the making. Recent form has been patchy: it won two of its last six races, including a victory in its most recent outing just yesterday, but also returned a couple of disappointing runs further back. The horse clearly has the ability to win, it just doesn't do it often or consistently enough to be considered a top prospect.

Where Handle With Care does show a real preference is on normal ground conditions. It has won three of 11 races on standard ground — a 27% win rate — which is well above its overall form. It also performs best when the race sits between a mile and seven furlongs, winning twice from seven attempts over that distance. The combination of Lingfield Park, normal ground, and a middle-distance trip would be the ideal circumstances to back this horse, if it landed all three at once. Under jockey Hollie Doyle, who has ridden it eight times, the record stands at two wins from those eight races — a respectable 25% partnership that suggests they work well together.

Trained by Marco Botti's Newmarket yard, Handle With Care operates mostly in Class 4 company, winning just one of eight races at that level. It is the sort of horse that might reward a patient punter who knows its track, its ground, and its optimal distance, but it is not the kind that wins often enough or impressively enough to carry serious money.