Nuptown Girl

The overall numbers are modest — one win and five places from 17 races amounts to a win rate of around 1 in 17 — but the more telling figure is what happens when she gets the right conditions. Over longer distances, between a mile and six furlongs and two miles, she has won 1 of her 5 races at that trip. That is a 20% win rate, or roughly one in every five — which is actually a healthy return and suggests she is a horse who needs a genuine test of stamina to show her best. At the Class 4 level where she typically competes, she is still searching for that combination to click again, having drawn a blank in her five races at that grade.

She is trained by Ian Williams at his yard in Portway, Worcestershire, and this season the team has sent out 96 winners — a remarkable volume that marks Williams out as one of the most productive trainers in the country right now. A horse like Nuptown Girl, capable of winning at a track as prestigious as Newmarket, will be exactly the kind of project his yard thrives on: finding the right race at the right distance and getting the best out of a horse that needs things to fall into place.

At just four years old, she is still relatively lightly tested for a horse with 17 races on the clock, and her recent form — a win, a second, and a fourth in her last three runs — suggests she is coming into her own at exactly the right time. The question now is whether her team can find another race that suits her stamina and gives her the chance to make that Newmarket win the beginning of something rather than a one-off.