Maldevious

The recent form figures of 9-4-7-4-7-3 are a mixed picture. The finishes of third and two fourths show Maldevious is capable of getting into contention, but the nines and sevens suggest those good days are not yet coming consistently enough. Racing just yesterday, the horse is clearly active and being kept busy, which suggests the team around it believes there is still something to unlock.

That team is trained by Brian Ellison, operating out of Norton in North Yorkshire — a yard that has sent out 47 winners already this season, which is a genuinely productive operation. Ellison clearly knows how to get horses winning, which makes Maldevious something of an outlier in the stable. At Class 4 level — the middle tier of British racing — the horse has run three times without winning once. That is the level where Ellison will be hoping to eventually get the breakthrough, and with a busy trainer in form around it, the opportunity should come.

Whether Maldevious can take that opportunity is the open question. Plenty of horses find their feet eventually, and a yard firing out winners at this rate gives it as good a chance as any. But nine races without a win is a wait that will test the patience of anyone following this horse.