Speeding Bullet

Midgley, whose yard in Westow, North Yorkshire has sent out 37 winners this season, is candid about the journey it took to find this horse's sweet spot. They started him over longer trips — seven furlongs, even a mile — before working back to six furlongs, and the penny dropped. He won at Pontefract in June last year on wet, slow ground, and that result told them everything they needed to know. This is a horse who wants the ground soft and the trip tight. At five to six and a half furlongs, he has won 1 from 5 races — a 20% win rate — which is markedly better than his overall record and suggests that when conditions suit, he is a different proposition.

Midgley puts it simply: he loves that this horse puts his head down and gives absolutely everything. That kind of attitude tends to matter more than talent when races get messy or conditions get tough, and it explains why the team has stuck with him through the quieter runs. A trip to Newcastle over five furlongs last summer — forced by the dry conditions Britain served up — saw him run respectably, but five furlongs on fast ground is not his race. Six furlongs on soft ground is.

Which brings us to where he stands now. Speeding Bullet has not raced for roughly seven months, returning from a break with recent form that read 2-2-4 before that layoff — three consecutive placed efforts that showed he was in decent nick when last seen. He tends to operate in Class 5 company, the bread-and-butter level of British racing, where he has won 1 from 9 at an 11% win rate. He is not a horse who wins often, but Midgley knows exactly what he needs, and if a race comes up over six furlongs on soft ground, Speeding Bullet will have every reason to go close.