City Of God

That single win came at Southwell in January 2025, and it remains the defining moment of City of God's career so far. The problem is that it was 16 months ago, and the six races since have produced nothing better than a fifth place. Form figures of 8-5-blank-8-8-7 are not pretty reading — three finishes outside the top seven and one race where it did not complete the course. The horse has clearly found it harder to repeat that January breakthrough than anyone connected to it would have hoped.

The step up in class may be part of the story. City of God has run four times at Class 4 level — one rung above the bottom of the ladder in British racing — and has not won once in those races. That suggests the horse is competitive at a lower level but finds things tougher when the quality improves even slightly. It is the kind of pattern that trainers spend a lot of time working around.

Michael Attwater, who trains City of God at his yard in Epsom, Surrey, has had a productive season by any measure — 25 winners sent out is a solid return and shows the stable knows how to get horses to perform. Jockey Sam James has partnered City of God five times and has one win to show for it, which works out to winning 1 in every 5 rides together. That is actually a better ratio than the horse's overall record suggests, and it hints that the combination has something to offer when things fall right.

City of God raced just yesterday, so this is a horse in active training and clearly being kept busy. The target for the team now is presumably finding the right opportunity — a race where the class drops back to a level where that Southwell win starts to look like a template rather than a lucky footnote.