The recent form makes for tough reading. Over the last six races, the finishes read 9th, 11th, 11th, 8th, 3rd, 3rd — a horse that showed some promise a year ago and has since struggled to recapture it. Two third-place finishes earlier in that sequence offered a flicker of hope, but the subsequent runs have been well off the pace. It raced just yesterday, which tells you this is a horse being kept busy, but busy has not yet translated into better.
The distance picture is at least a little clearer. Opening Bat has produced its best results over a mile and one or two furlongs, which is a middle-distance trip that suits horses with a bit of stamina. That is where its only win came, and where 12% of its runs over that range — 1 from 8 — have ended in victory. The problem is that its current class of racing, the lower-tier Class 5 level, has yielded nothing: no wins from 4 attempts at that grade, which suggests the horse is not dominating even the races it ought to be competitive in.
Regular jockey Trevor Whelan has been in the saddle for 5 of those races together, and the pair have yet to find the winner's enclosure as a combination. That is not necessarily damning — plenty of talented jockeys ride horses through lean patches — but it does mean Whelan has yet to unlock whatever Opening Bat has in the tank. With a yard as active and capable as Charlton's behind it, the tools are there. Opening Bat just needs to start using them.
| Course | Races | Results | Last run | Win rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kempton Park Galloping |
3 | 1 win, 2 other | 8 Jul | 33.3% |
| Salisbury Undulating |
3 | 1 third, 2 other | 14 Jun | 0% |
| Newmarket Galloping |
2 | 1 third, 1 other | 20 Jun | 0% |
| chelmsford | 1 | 1 other | 12 Dec | 0% |
| Chepstow Galloping |
1 | 1 other | 21 May | 0% |
| Southwell Galloping |
1 | 1 third | 25 Aug | 0% |
| Bath Undulating |
1 | 1 other | 20 Apr | 0% |