Orbital Chime

Trainer James Owen picked Orbital Chime up from an online sale in February, the horse having been offloaded by his previous yard essentially as a bad debt — unwanted, underperforming, and going cheap. Owen's Newmarket operation has sent out 204 winners this season alone, so this is a yard that knows what it's doing, and the fact that they saw something worth buying says something. Owen has been candid about the learning curve: it's taken several races just to work out what makes this horse tick.

The most recent win came at Southwell on 21 November 2025 — about six months ago now — and the six races since have brought nothing better than a second place. That run of form, finishing sixth, sixth, second, third, and seventh across the last few outings, is patchy but not hopeless. The second and third suggest the ability is still there; the sixths just mean things haven't clicked. Owen points to a fifth-place finish at Ayr in what he describes as a very competitive race as a quiet signal that Orbital Chime is building toward something. That's the optimistic read, and from a trainer with a 204-winner season behind him, it's not a throwaway comment.

Regular rider P J McDonald has been in the saddle for 10 of those 36 races, winning once together — 1 win from 10 rides, or 10%. That's a better ratio than the horse's overall record, which suggests the partnership at least works. The first career win came back in October 2022 at Redcar, so Orbital Chime has been around long enough to know what a winning line feels like, even if it hasn't crossed one recently. At Class 4 level — the bread-and-butter middle tier of British racing — the horse has run 13 times without winning, which is the most puzzling stat in the file. Whether the next few races change that is the question Orbital Chime's team are very much hoping to answer.