Zodiac Bear

The recent form tells its own story. Reading right to left — which is how racing people look at it, most recent first — the sequence goes 1, 4, 3, 1, 11. Ignore that last number for a second, because what stands out is the improvement at either end. Whatever happened in that poor run, Zodiac Bear has bounced back twice and won. The most recent of those wins came at The Curragh just this week, which means this is a horse in form right now, not one you're reading about on the strength of something that happened months ago.

Both wins have come on normal ground — standard conditions underfoot, not too wet, not too firm — and the numbers back up the preference strongly: 2 wins from 3 races in those conditions works out to a 67% win rate, or roughly 2 in every 3. That's not a coincidence, it's a pattern, and it's the kind of detail that matters when you're picking a race to watch.

Zodiac Bear is trained by J P Murtagh, operating out of Coolaghknock Glebe in County Kildare. The yard has sent out 53 winners already this season, which puts it firmly in the conversation as one of the more productive operations around at the moment. Getting 53 winners over a season requires depth, organisation, and horses in form — and Zodiac Bear looks like a solid example of exactly that. A horse that broke its duck at Leopardstown in May, won again at The Curragh in late June, and hasn't finished out of the places in four of its five races is one that clearly knows what it's doing. Keep an eye on it.