Illy's Roo

Across 12 races, Illy's Roo has won 3 times and placed on 4 other occasions, giving him a win rate of 25% — roughly 1 in every 4 races. Those are decent numbers for a horse his age, but the recent form tells a more complicated story. His last six outings read 7-7-8-3-1-7, which means he's been finishing near the back of the field more often than not, with that one glittering win in March sandwiched between disappointments. The trick, according to trainer Gemma Tutty, is finding him exactly the right kind of race.

Tutty, who operates out of Osmotherley in North Yorkshire and has sent out 20 winners already this season, is refreshingly candid about what makes Illy's Roo tick. He needs a fast-run race — lots of pace up front, so he can use his finishing kick against horses that have burned themselves out. When the pace is there, as it was at Southwell, he's a different animal. When it isn't, he struggles to land a blow. That's why Tutty is pointing him at bigger races around seven furlongs where the prize money is good and the tempo is likely to be strong, even if that means taking on stronger competition. She's even considered Chester, though she's not convinced it will suit him.

On normal ground conditions, Illy's Roo has won 2 of his 5 races — a 40% win rate that's genuinely impressive and well above his overall average. Find him a flat, fair track, a well-run race, and the right ground, and he becomes a real factor. That Southwell win at 28-1 wasn't a fluke of luck so much as a fluke of circumstance — and Tutty knows it. The goal now is to engineer those circumstances again, this time in a race worth more money. He raced just yesterday, so he's very much in the thick of his season, and if the right opportunity comes along, don't be surprised if he pops up and does it all over again.