Thursday

Both wins have come on fast, dry ground, and Thursday has raced on that surface just five times in its career. Two wins from five attempts is a 40% win rate — that is a genuinely striking number, the kind that makes a knowledgeable punter sit up. It tells you this is not a horse that wins occasionally despite the conditions, but one that transforms when the sun has been out and the ground is firm underfoot. On softer or wetter ground, it simply has not been able to produce the same results.

Distance matters too. Thursday's best performances have come over a mile and three furlongs to a mile and four furlongs — a middle-distance trip that suits a horse built for a staying gallop rather than a sprint. Across nine races at those distances, it has won twice, a win rate of roughly 1 in every 4 and a half races, which is comfortably above its overall average. The trainer Simon Dow, based at Epsom in Surrey, clearly understands where this horse belongs. His yard has sent out 14 winners this season, and Thursday fits a pattern of horses placed carefully at Class 6 level — the entry-level tier of British racing — where it has also recorded both of its wins from nine attempts at that grade.

The honest part of Thursday's profile, though, is the recent run of form. It has not won in six races, with its last success coming at Lingfield Park in August 2024 — nearly two years ago now. The figures from those six runs make for grim reading: finishing eighth, thirteenth, eleventh, eighth, and twelfth suggests a horse that has been finding things hard, not one on the verge of a breakthrough. It raced just yesterday, so it is clearly fit and active. What Thursday is waiting for, in all likelihood, is a dry spell, a mile and a half trip, and a Class 6 race. When those three things align, the record says take notice.