On The River

What makes On The River genuinely fascinating is how he has improved with age, which almost never happens. Harriet Bethell has spoken openly about her surprise — when he won three races in a row early on, she half-expected him to go quiet. Instead, he won four the following season. He arrived at her yard rated 63, a fairly modest number, and by June 2025 he was winning the Carlisle Bell off a mark of 80. That 17-point climb through the ratings is the racing equivalent of a mid-career promotion nobody saw coming.

The other thing to know about On The River is that he is a completely different horse on wet ground. In normal conditions he is perfectly decent, but on soft or wet ground he wins 5 from 11 races — that's 45%, nearly 1 in every 2. On the truly muddy stuff, he has won 2 from 5, which is 40%. When the heavens open, this horse becomes a different proposition entirely. His yard admitted after the Carlisle win that they only ran because the ground was soft — the race almost didn't happen. He won well.

His most trusted partner in the saddle is Cam Hardie, who has ridden him to 5 wins from 15 races together — a win rate of 33%, or 1 in every 3 rides. That is a remarkable partnership by any measure, and it suggests there is real understanding between horse and rider. His last win came at Carlisle on 25 June 2025, and although he hasn't won in his last six races — his recent form reading 5-7-2-5-2-4 — there have been two placed efforts in there, and the team are already talking about targets: a possible trip to Ayr, or a race back at Carlisle. On The River is not done yet.