Wrist Art

What it does do, to its credit, is keep showing up. Eleven places from 43 races tells you this is a horse that competes honestly and finishes in the frame often enough to suggest it belongs at this level — it just rarely finds that extra gear when it matters most. Recent form of 5-4-3 in its last three completed runs shows a horse moving in the right direction, at least on paper, though it has been moving in that direction before without ever quite arriving. It raced just yesterday, which underlines that this is a horse in regular work and still being kept busy.

The partnership with jockey Wayne Hassett is the most interesting number in the file. Between them they have won 2 of their 11 races together — that is roughly 1 in every 5 rides, which is a genuinely strong ratio and stands in sharp contrast to Wrist Art's overall record. It suggests Hassett brings something out in this horse that other jockeys have not. The trainer is James Owen, based in Newmarket, and his yard has been in fine form this season with 205 winners sent out — a productive operation by any measure. The curious footnote is that Wrist Art has run seven times at Class 6, the most modest level of competition in Britain, and has not won once. Sometimes a horse just finds its ceiling and settles in comfortably below it.