Jimmy Hurdstrom

The recent form makes for interesting reading: third, third, third, fifth, fourth, second, reading back from his most recent run just yesterday. Strip away the fifth and you have a horse who has been remarkably consistent, hovering just off the pace race after race. That run of three consecutive third-place finishes is the kind of thing that will have the team at Woolhope tearing their hair out slightly — so close, so often, so stubbornly short of a win.

Jockey Stan Sheppard has been aboard for eight of those nine races and is yet to ride him to victory, which means the two of them know each other's rhythms well by now without yet having shared that winning moment. The trainer, Tom Lacey, has had a productive season with 37 winners from his Herefordshire yard, so he clearly knows how to get horses to the front — Jimmy Hurdstrom is just proving a trickier puzzle than most. Most of his races have come at Class 4 level, which is solidly mid-tier racing, and he has not won any of the four he has contested at that grade.

What you are looking at is a horse who is genuinely competitive — he is not being beaten out of sight, he is not finishing last — but who has not yet found whatever it takes to win. Whether that is a question of distance, ground conditions on the right day, or simply waiting for things to click, only time will tell. Given Tom Lacey's record this season, it would be unwise to write him off entirely.