Spanish Hustle

Jim Goldie's team at Uplawmoor has built a strong season with 88 winners already, and Spanish Hustle remains part of the mix. His best surfaces are slightly soft or dry ground — he has won roughly 1 in every 4 races (3 wins from 11) on soft ground and 2 in every 7 (2 wins from 7) on fast, dry conditions — suggesting he is not fussy about what the track offers him as long as it is not at the extremes. At his favoured distance of between 1m1f and 1m2f, he has won 1 of his 4 races. The elephant in the room is his record in Class 5 races, the lower tier where he has competed most often: just 1 win from 19 outings tells you that when he steps down to that level, he struggles. This means his wins have largely come at slightly higher grades where the opposition suits him better. Kaiya Fraser, his regular jockey, has steered him to 2 wins from 12 rides together — a 17% win rate that mirrors the horse's own modest return. Without a win in his last six races, Spanish Hustle is in the kind of dip that many older campaigners face, but his Hamilton Park form offers a faint glimmer: if he can get back there on the right ground with the right race, he might just remind his the yard why they have kept him going this long.