My Friend Sean

The other thing that really defines My Friend Sean is his preference for a specific trip. Over distances of a mile and six furlongs up to two miles, he has won 3 of just 6 races — that's 50%, or one in every two starts at those distances. For a horse who wins roughly 1 in every 5 races across his career as a whole (5 wins from 23), that jump in performance tells you a lot. Get the distance wrong and you're seeing a different horse entirely.

He's trained by Tom Lacey, whose yard in Woolhope, Herefordshire, has been in fine form this season with 37 winners sent out. Regular jockey Stan Sheppard has been aboard for 15 of those 23 career races, though their combined win rate — 1 win from 15 rides together, roughly 1 in 15 — is modest and suggests the partnership hasn't always clicked the way you'd hope.

The honest picture right now is that My Friend Sean hasn't won in his last 6 races, and his recent form figures of 2-5-6-3-6-6 show plenty of mid-pack finishes rather than near-misses. He's not on a hot streak. But he raced just yesterday, so Lacey clearly thinks there's more to come from this horse, and the one circuit that keeps dragging him back into relevance is Uttoxeter. If you ever find yourself at that track on a race day and see his name on the card at a distance around two miles, that is precisely the combination that has made him impossible to ignore.