Storm The Dug

Trained by Lucinda Russell and Michael Scudamore, Storm The Dug operates at Class 5, which is the entry-level tier of British racing. Even there, it has drawn a blank in all four attempts at that level. The most recent run was just yesterday, so this is very much a horse in active campaign, and the yard around it is clearly in decent health — 49 winners already this season is a healthy return for any training operation, suggesting the problem is not the preparation, it is simply that Storm The Dug has not yet found a race it can win.

The recent form reads 2-5-2-4 in its last four completed runs, which paints a picture of a horse that is usually in the thick of things early and mid-race but has been unable to hold on or quicken when it counts. Two runner-up finishes in that sequence are genuinely encouraging — second place is agonisingly close — but turning those near-misses into a victory has so far proved beyond the four-year-old. At this stage of its career, a horse this age should arguably be finding its feet and improving, so there is reason to think a first win is not an impossibility. It just has not happened yet.

Whether Storm The Dug eventually breaks its duck or goes down as one of those honest, hard-trying horses that simply never quite gets there, it is clearly being given every opportunity by a capable yard. Racing is full of horses like this — they make the field competitive, they keep their the yard guessing, and every race they run carries that small but genuine possibility that today might finally be the day.