Ice In The Veins

Harry Skelton has ridden Ice In The Veins seven times and won twice, a win rate of just under 30 percent — well above the horse's overall record. That partnership hints at something: the right jockey drawing out form that the horse doesn't always show. Trainer Sarah-Jayne Davies, based at Leominster in Herefordshire, has steered the horse through most of its career and runs a modest yard that sent out five winners this season. Davies knows this horse's strengths and limitations intimately.

The window for this horse probably narrowed some time ago. At six years old, still racing but winless for ten months, Ice In The Veins is the kind of horse that needs a clear lane — Class 4 company, perhaps the right ground, the right jockey up — to find the winner's circle again. Racing so recently suggests it has not been retired, but the gap between its last win and now is substantial enough that a return to form would count as a proper improvement rather than a continuation.