De Deli Counter

Look at the last six runs and you see a horse that has genuinely come alive. A second place, then a blank, then a fifth, then a third, then — crucially — a first, followed by a sixth most recently. That winning run came at Market Rasen on 5th April 2026, which is the first time De Deli Counter has managed to get to the front and stay there in a career now spanning ten races. First wins can sometimes feel like a dam breaking — the horse figures out what is being asked of it, and things start to click. Whether that is what is happening here remains to be seen, but the consistency of placing in this recent sequence suggests a horse that is competitive rather than one simply making up the numbers.

What is slightly puzzling is that De Deli Counter has run four times at the level it usually competes at — Class 5, which is roughly the everyday working end of British racing — and has not won any of those. The Market Rasen breakthrough came there, but the broader record at that level reads zero wins from four attempts before that day. It is a reminder that even at the less glamorous end of the sport, winning is genuinely hard and horses can be frustratingly close to a win for a long time before it comes.

The horse is trained by Mark Walford, who operates out of Sheriff Hutton in North Yorkshire, and the yard has been in fine form this season — 35 winners and counting, which is a healthy, productive season for any training operation. A trainer whose yard is running hot is always worth following, because horses tend to arrive at the track in the right condition when a yard has momentum. De Deli Counter raced just one day ago, so it is very much in the thick of things right now.