Numidia

The most telling detail is Numidia's love of normal ground: on standard conditions, the horse wins roughly one race in every five attempts (3 wins from 14 races), nearly double its overall rate. That is the kind of edge that keeps an eight-year-old in the game. Add in a preference for longer distances — two miles and beyond — and a picture emerges of a horse that needs the right conditions and the right race to deliver. Peter Lawlor's yard at Donard has the horse ticking over, and recent form suggests Numidia still has something left in the tank: two wins in the last six races, including a victory at Down Royal just five weeks ago, show the horse is capable of posting winners into the middle of summer.

The relationship with regular jockey Rory Cleary has been modest — one win from thirteen rides together at eight percent — but that may simply reflect the difficulty of getting the right race, the right ground, and the right partner all at once. For a horse approaching its twilight years, Numidia remains active and occasionally sharp. It is not a star, but it is the kind of horse that has earned the right to keep racing, and will pop up with a winner when all the pieces align.