Billy No Mates

What Billy No Mates does do, and deserves some credit for, is keep turning up. He raced just yesterday, which tells you this is an active, durable horse still putting in the miles at the age of ten. Most of his racing has come at Class 5 level — the bread-and-butter end of the sport, where the competition is more accessible than at the top — and even there he has managed only 2 wins from 14 races, a win rate of 14%, or roughly 1 in 7. He is competitive enough to be placed regularly, finishing in the top few without quite finding that finishing kick when it matters.

His partnership with jockey Connor Beasley tells its own story: the two have raced together twelve times and have yet to win. Twelve races is a meaningful sample — that is not bad luck, that is a pattern. Beasley is a capable jockey, so the issue lies elsewhere. Michael Dods, who trains Billy No Mates from his yard in Piercebridge, County Durham, is clearly having a productive season — 43 winners sent out already — which makes this horse something of an outlier in what is otherwise a successful operation. His first win came at Thirsk back in July 2022, and his second and last at Haydock fourteen months later. Two wins from thirty races is a modest career by any measure, and yet here he is, still racing, still placing, still showing up. Sometimes that counts for something.