Jamaican Storm

The overall record reads 1 win and 9 places from 21 races, a 5% win rate that amounts to winning roughly 1 in every 20 outings. Modest on paper, but the nine placed finishes tell you this horse keeps turning up, keeps competing, keeps finding itself in the mix without quite getting over the line. The recent form makes for more cheerful reading: in the last six races, Jamaican Storm has a second, a win, a fourth, a ninth, a third, and a sixth — which, read the right way round from that win three months ago, shows a horse that had found its moment and then stayed lively.

Paul Mulrennan has been in the saddle for 13 of those 21 races together, winning once — a win rate of 8%, or roughly 1 in every 13 rides. That is a long-standing partnership by any measure, and jockey-horse combinations that keep going despite modest returns tend to suggest a team that believes there is more to come. The yard backing that belief belongs to Bryan Smart, based at Sutton Bank in North Yorkshire, who has sent out 18 winners already this season — a trainer clearly in form, even if Jamaican Storm is not yet among his most frequent contributors.

One slightly curious detail: Jamaican Storm most often runs in Class 5, the lower tier of British racing, and has not won a single one of those 8 attempts — 0 from 8. Yet the horse's only win came at Newcastle. Whether the right race at the right trip can unlock that performance again is the question the team at Sutton Bank will be working to answer. With a race run just yesterday, Jamaican Storm is very much still in the thick of things.