Brave Move

The recent run of form makes for sobering reading. Over the last six races, the best Brave Move has managed is a third place, bookended by two eighth-place finishes on either side. Third, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, eighth — there is no consistent direction of travel here, which makes it hard to spot a pattern or pick out conditions that might unlock something better. The horse raced just yesterday, so it is right in the thick of its campaign at the moment.

Jockey Jonathan Burke has been the regular partner, teaming up with Brave Move five times without finding the winner's enclosure once. That is not necessarily a reflection on Burke, who is a capable rider, but the partnership simply has not clicked in the way the yard would hope. Brave Move typically runs at Class 5 level — the entry-level tier of British racing, where fields are made up of horses without much winning form — and has drawn a blank in all five races at that grade. You might expect a horse with ability to thrive at this level, which makes the 0 from 5 record there particularly telling.

The one brighter element in this story is the yard behind the horse. Trainer Fergal O'Brien, based in Withington in Gloucestershire, has sent out 90 winners already this season — a significant number that marks his operation as one of the more productive yards in the country. O'Brien clearly knows how to get horses winning, which means when the right race comes along for Brave Move, there will be no shortage of expertise guiding the preparation. Whether a first win is on the horizon is genuinely hard to say, but with a trainer of that calibre in charge, it would be unwise to write Brave Move off entirely.