Kingdom Of Stars

Trained by Kerry Lee at her yard in Byton, Herefordshire, Kingdom Of Stars is part of a team that has had a productive season, sending out 12 winners. Lee clearly knows how to get horses into the winner's enclosure, and the hope will be that Kingdom Of Stars can add to that tally. The horse's best form comes over longer distances — between a mile and six furlongs and two miles — where it has won 1 from 8 races, a 12% win rate, or roughly 1 in every 8 attempts. That might not sound eye-catching, but it is meaningfully better than its overall record, suggesting the stamina tests suit it more than shorter work.

The current form line reads 4-–-3-6-–-–, meaning Kingdom Of Stars has picked up a couple of placed finishes in recent outings without threatening the front. It has not won in its last six races, and with the Kempton victory now nearly 11 months in the rear-view mirror, there is a sense that the horse is waiting for everything to click again. It raced just one day ago, so it is very much in active training and being kept busy.

At Class 4 level — the middle tier of British racing, where competitive but not elite horses tend to operate — Kingdom Of Stars has gone 1 from 8, again at that 12% rate. It is a horse that places often enough to suggest it belongs at this level — seven placed finishes from 17 races is no small thing — but converting those near-misses into wins has proven the challenge. Seven times in the frame, once in the photo. The talent is there in flashes; the task for Kerry Lee is turning those flashes into something more consistent.