Calvert

His one career win came at Bath in October 2023, now thirty-one months ago, and at his best distance of a mile and three or four furlongs he has won 1 from 4 races — a 25% win rate that sounds promising but hasn't translated into anything since. At Class 4 level, the bread-and-butter tier of British racing, he has gone 0 from 7. That is a telling number. He shows up, he places, he just cannot quite find the extra gear needed to win at that level on the Flat.

Which is exactly what his trainer Roger Teal is thinking about. Teal, who operates out of Lambourn in Berkshire and has sent out 22 winners already this season — a yard clearly in good form — sees Calvert as something of a dual-purpose project. After a promising fourth on his hurdles debut at Huntingdon, the plan is to mix jumping and Flat racing going forward. In plain terms: if Calvert has run into a ceiling on the Flat, there may be more headroom over obstacles. A horse that places consistently and jumps with promise is a horse that could genuinely surprise people in a different setting.

His overall record of 1 win and 10 places from 20 races, a win rate of just 5% — roughly 1 in every 20 races — sounds modest. But he raced yesterday, he is active, and the team around him clearly believes there is still a story to be written. Calvert may never be a headline act on the Flat, but written off he should not be.