My Boy Jack

Wolverhampton is his stage. He has won three of his 29 races at that track, a win rate of roughly 1 in 10 — far better than his overall record. It is the kind of advantage that suggests something about the place suits him: perhaps the track itself, perhaps the distances he encounters there, or simply the races he finds himself in. He also favours shorter trips of five to six and a half furlongs, and performs noticeably better on normal, standard ground, where he has won three of 56 races compared to nothing on faster or wetter surfaces. These are small edges in a tough game.

When My Boy Jack was bought as a youngster at the Craven breeze-ups for 50,000 guineas, his trainer Kevin Frost recognised the value in him. The colt had made a quarter of a million as a yearling before his price dropped, and Frost felt fortune had smiled on the yard to secure him. The horse arrived with pedigree and promise — a fact borne out by his talent at home. But promise and reality are different things in racing, and while My Boy Jack has stayed sound and willing through 89 races, he has never quite become the winner his early price tags suggested he might be. That is the racing game. He remains active and in work at Averham Park, still hunting for a fourth win.