Jack Dempsey

Duncan trains out of Coylton in Ayrshire and has had nine winners on the board this season, so the yard clearly knows how to get horses ready to win. Jack Dempsey, though, has been one of the trickier puzzles. Its recent form figures — a fifth, a ninth, two blank runs, another fifth, and a tenth — suggest a horse that can produce a respectable effort but hasn't threatened the front end consistently. The two gaps in the record are worth noting; races missed or results unavailable can sometimes indicate a horse being managed carefully between runs.

At Class 4 level, which is solidly mid-tier racing, Jack Dempsey has run three times without winning. That's a meaningful sample. It's not being thrown into the deep end against the best horses in Britain, but it hasn't been able to take advantage of the more competitive standard either. Racing just yesterday, it remains an active project — Duncan hasn't given up, and in a sport where patience is everything, that counts for something. The name Jack Dempsey conjures images of a heavyweight fighter who kept coming forward no matter what. Whether the horse eventually lives up to that billing remains the open question.