Apache Star

Those three wins tell an interesting story on their own. The first came at Wolverhampton on Boxing Day 2021, which is a tough day to break your duck — tracks are busy, competition is stiff, and plenty of horses struggle in the cold. The other two have both come at Bath, and that is where Apache Star starts to look genuinely interesting. Two wins from eight races at one track is a 25% win rate — that is 1 in every 4 visits — which is a remarkable return for a horse that elsewhere wins barely 1 in 20. Something about Bath suits this horse in a way that most other venues simply do not.

The problem is that it has been a long wait since those Bath wins. The last one came in August 2023, now more than two and a half years ago, and the recent form makes for uncomfortable reading: three finishes, then a fourth, two sixths, and two blanks in the last six races. Apache Star raced just yesterday and still could not get into contention, which suggests the form is genuinely flat rather than just patchy. Billy Loughnane has been in the saddle for 12 of these races without a single win together, which is a run of luck that will test anyone's patience.

Trained by E D Delany from a yard in Laytown, Co Meath that has sent out five winners this season, Apache Star competes mostly at Class 6 — the entry level of British racing — and has won 2 of 21 races at that level, roughly 1 in every 10. For a horse operating at the bottom rung, that is modest but not embarrassing. The question now is whether Bath, the one place where Apache Star has ever looked a cut above, still holds the key — or whether that chapter has quietly closed.