Penzance

The six-year-old has run 38 times in total, winning 4 of them — roughly 1 in every 10 races — with 14 further placed finishes showing he is competitive far more often than the win count alone suggests. His strongest suit is distance: over a mile and three to a mile and four furlongs, he has won 4 of 22 races, or about 1 in every 5-and-a-half. He also clearly enjoys normal ground conditions, where again he has taken 4 from 21 races, winning close to one in five. But the really striking number is at Chelmsford, where he has won 3 times from just 7 visits. That is an extraordinary ratio — nearly one win every other time he walks into that place — and it marks him out as a genuine course specialist there.

His big-race win came at Newcastle on New Year's Day 2024, a top-level all-weather race that showed he could handle the step up in class when conditions suited. His regular partner Alistair Rawlinson has been on board for all four wins from 19 rides together, a partnership that wins roughly 1 in every 5 races they share — well above his overall average.

What makes the current moment genuinely interesting is where Hanlon is pointing him next. He hasn't won in his last six races, but the form figures of 2-2-4 show he has been knocking on the door consistently enough. The trainer has noted that Penzance ran his best ever race on grass at Doncaster recently, suggesting the turf form is now catching up with his all-weather ability. The Cambridgeshire — a famous late-season handicap run at Newmarket — is the target on Saturday. For a horse who arrived rated 74 and quietly climbed to 100, a run in one of the most competitive autumn races in Britain feels like a proper arrival on the big stage.