Poet

The seven-year-old is trained by Scott Dixon, based in Rolleston, Nottinghamshire. Dixon's yard has been in decent form this season, sending out 33 winners, which makes Poet something of an outlier in their operation — a horse that has found winning difficult but keeps getting a chance. Kieran O'Neill has ridden Poet seven times without ever getting the horse to the winner's enclosure, a pairing that has yet to click.

Poet's best racing comes over short distances — between five and six and a half furlongs, which is a sprint by horse racing standards, all speed and very little room for error. In those shorter races, the record reads 2 wins from 26 attempts, a win rate of around 1 in 13. That is still modest, but it represents the entirety of what Poet has achieved — both career wins have come at this kind of trip. The first arrived at Kempton Park in December 2021, and the most recent at Newcastle in May 2025, 15 months ago now. Two wins, over three and a half years. That gap tells its own story.

Almost all of Poet's racing has come in Class 6 company — the lowest rung of British racing, where the prize money is thin and the competition is made up of horses who, like Poet, have found it hard to win regularly. Even at that level, the record is just 1 win from 27 races, a rate of around 1 in 27. The recent form figures — finishing ninth, ninth, ninth, seventh, seventh, and ninth across the last six races — suggest a horse that is currently finding things particularly tough, consistently finishing near the back of the field rather than threatening the front.

What keeps Poet interesting is simply the persistence of it all. Forty-three races, two wins, still racing at seven. This is not a horse built for the big occasions — it is a regular, hard-working competitor at the bottom of the sport, doing its job week after week even when the results do not go its way.