Hierarchy

His last victory came at Lingfield Park in February of this year, seven months ago. Before that, he had strung together a sequence of places and misses that tells a familiar story: a horse who wins often enough to be interesting but not often enough to be truly reliable. When Hierarchy does find the frame — and he does frequently, with twenty-two places from his fifty-eight races — it often comes on normal ground at Class 5 level, where he has won three of his twenty-two races (14%). That suggests he has a clear comfort zone, and when his rider Saffie Osborne is aboard, things often improve: she has piloted him to four wins from twenty-nine races together (14%), a rate that outpaces his career average considerably.

His trainer Jamie Osborne, based at Upper Lambourn in Berkshire, has a yard in good form this season with forty-eight winners already sent out. The stable notes that Hierarchy had shown real promise in the past, winning twice over six furlongs and even running a competitive second in a Group 2 race, though the top level proved beyond him. Since then, the plan has been to campaign him at lower, more forgiving levels where his talents shine brightest. At seven years old, he is entering the latter part of his career, which makes those stretches between victories all the more precious for his the yard. Every race now is a chance to add to a modest tally before his best days slip away.