Anvika

The best version of Anvika tends to emerge over shorter distances. In races run between five and six-and-a-half furlongs, it has won 1 from 5 — that's a 20% win rate, meaning it wins roughly 1 in every 5 times it races at those trips. That's a genuinely different horse to the one you see stretched over longer distances, and it's the kind of stat that matters when you're trying to figure out where a horse belongs.

Its two career wins came over a year apart — the first at Dundalk in December 2023, the second at Limerick in June 2024 — and that Limerick win is now 23 months in the rear-view mirror. The recent form reads 10-13-8-17-9-3, which is a sequence of mid-field and tail-end finishes for the most part, though that third place a little further back is at least a sign of life. Anvika raced just yesterday, so Lavery is clearly keeping the horse busy and looking for the right opportunity.

Jockey Robbie Colgan has partnered Anvika more than anyone else — 12 times in total — and they've won together once, a win rate of around 1 in 12. That's a modest return, but the consistency of the partnership suggests Colgan knows this horse well, which counts for something.

Lavery's yard has sent out three winners this season, so it's a small but active operation that clearly believes in keeping horses in work and finding the races that suit them. Whether Anvika can rediscover the form that brought it to the winner's enclosure at Limerick remains to be seen — but at five years old, with a clear preference for shorter trips and a trainer who keeps coming back to the track with it, the door isn't closed just yet.