Blackjack

The horse's real strength is Newcastle, where he has learned the track's quirks better than most. Four of his seven career wins have come there, a rate of roughly 1 in 8 races over 33 visits to that course. His last victory, on 14 February 2025, came at Newcastle too — but that was 19 months ago, which tells you something important: Blackjack has been struggling to find the winner's enclosure lately. In his last six races, his results read 3-14-3-6-5-7 (most recent first), a sequence of mid-field finishes that shows he is still competitive enough to place regularly, yet cannot quite get over the line.

Trained by Alan Brown at Yedingham in North Yorkshire, Blackjack typically races in Class 5 events — the lower tier of jumping or flat racing — where he holds his own. His partnership with Dale Swift, his most frequent jockey, has yielded just one win from 12 races together, suggesting the pairing has not quite clicked. Yet Blackjack keeps showing up, keeps running, and occasionally still reminds the yard why he was worth keeping in training. A horse this age, with this record, is a testament to steady management rather than raw talent, but there is something admirable in that quiet persistence.