He's Holding Court

The recent form tells a difficult story. A fourth-place finish four runs ago was the high point of a sequence that also includes a tenth and a thirteenth, and the horse has not managed to get its nose in front across its last six races. For a young horse still developing, there is time to turn things around — but the evidence to date suggests it is competing at a level where others keep finding more when it matters.

What gives the stable some cause for optimism is the trainer behind the operation. Andrew Slattery, based at Thurles in County Tipperary, has sent out 62 winners already this season — a figure that marks him out as a yard in form and one that clearly knows how to get horses race-ready. When a trainer is firing at that rate, a horse in the yard is at least in good hands, even if it hasn't yet figured out how to repay the faith. Whether He's Holding Court can find the right race and the right day to shed that zero from the win column remains the question.