Prince Abu

Southwell is where his story is written. Three of his four career wins have come at that track, from 23 races there in total. That kind of loyalty to a single venue is genuinely unusual — most horses perform similarly wherever they go — and it tells you something about how well the track suits his particular way of running. His first win came at Southwell in December 2021, and his most recent win came there too, in December 2022. That last victory is now 41 months ago, which sounds alarming, but he has been racing consistently throughout — 44 races in total, competing at the lower end of the sport's class structure, where the fields are deep and wins are hard to come by even for horses who genuinely belong at that level.

L J Morgan's yard in Waltham On The Wolds has sent out 14 winners this season, which shows this is a functioning, active operation rather than a small stable making up the numbers. Jockey Cam Hardie has ridden Prince Abu in 25 of his 44 races — a long-running partnership — with 2 wins together, winning roughly 1 in every 12 rides. Prince Abu raced just yesterday, so he is clearly fit and being kept busy. His last six results — a tenth, two fifths, and two fourths, with a place just one run ago — suggest he is knocking on the door without quite breaking through. Whether he can recapture that winning feeling depends, as it always has, on the weather forecast and the race card at Southwell.