In The Trenches

The recent form makes for interesting reading. Five of the last six runs have produced a place — including four second-place finishes — which means this horse has spent a lot of time as the runner-up, watching another horse collect the prize. The one blip in that sequence, marked by a dash, suggests a run where things went wrong rather than a sudden loss of ability. At five years old, In The Trenches is still relatively young and theoretically capable of improvement, but the absence of a single win from 29 races is a pattern that is hard to ignore.

Jockey Keith Donoghue has partnered In The Trenches ten times without winning, which raises a question the team at Gavin Cromwell's yard in Navan will have asked themselves: is this a combination that works, or is it time to try something different? To be fair to both horse and rider, the problem here looks less about the partnership and more about a horse that seems to run to a ceiling it cannot quite break through. Cromwell himself is clearly doing something right — 94 winners in a single season from his Meath base is a serious number — so this is not a yard short of knowhow.

In The Trenches is now returning after roughly three months off, which adds a layer of uncertainty. Sometimes a break resets a horse and brings genuine improvement; other times, a horse simply picks up where it left off. Given the pattern here, the honest expectation is another solid, competitive run — probably another place — rather than a first win. But then again, every record-breaking streak ends eventually, and In The Trenches has been knocking on the door long enough that when it finally does win, it will feel thoroughly deserved.