Onslow Gardens

The recent form makes for uncomfortable reading: a ninth, a third, a ninth, a seventh, a second, a ninth. That third and second show the ability is still flickering, but the cluster of ninths around them tells a more complicated story — a horse that can look good one week and disappear the next. It raced just yesterday, which means the team at Kevin Frost's Averham Park yard in Nottinghamshire are clearly not shy about keeping it busy.

Frost's yard has sent out 23 winners this season, so this is an operation that knows how to get a horse to win. The fact that Onslow Gardens hasn't managed it despite 20 attempts isn't for lack of a capable trainer. Regular jockey Alec Voikhansky has ridden it five times together and they're still waiting for that first breakthrough — 0 from 5 is a partnership that hasn't found the magic formula yet.

What's telling is where Onslow Gardens competes. Class 5 is the grassroots level of British racing — these aren't glamour events, they're the workhorses of the racing calendar, and even here, across 11 races at this level, it hasn't won. For context, a horse good enough to win at Class 5 regularly would be expected to move up the ladder. Onslow Gardens hasn't been able to take even that first step. Seven places in twenty races is respectable enough to keep the team hopeful, but at six years old, with no wins on the board, hope is doing a lot of heavy lifting.