Jersey Maverick

The numbers paint a picture of a steady, game competitor rather than a world-beater. In its last six races, Jersey Maverick has managed two second-place finishes and a pair of fourths, which shows consistency without any breakthrough victories in recent months. It has been 14 months since that win at Epsom, a long drought for any horse. What makes things tougher is that Jersey Maverick typically races at Class 5 level — the lower rungs of the ladder — yet has still managed only that solitary victory. The trainer, Charlie Fellowes of Newmarket, has sent out 21 winners this season from the yard, but Jersey Maverick remains one of the harder puzzles to solve.

This is the sort of horse that keeps running and trying but never quite finds the breakthrough. It knows how to win — it proved that at Epsom — but the gap between that one success and the other 18 races is the measure of how tough professional racing can be, even at the lower levels where Jersey Maverick competes.