Fighting Falcon

That recent sequence tells an interesting story. His last six results, working backwards from yesterday, read 1, pulled up, 5, 9, 8, 14. Strip away the pulled up and you can see a horse that has been steadily climbing through the field — from deep in the pack to a winning position. Whether that improvement is down to fitness, a change in approach, or simply finding the right race at the right moment, only Stuart Edmunds will know for certain, but the timing of that win at Uttoxeter on 16 May suggests something has clicked.

Edmunds trains out of Stewkley in Buckinghamshire and has been in excellent form this season, sending out 24 winners — a yard clearly operating with confidence. A trainer running hot like that tends to know when a horse is ready, and placing Fighting Falcon to land his first win this week looks like exactly the kind of astute placing that defines a yard in form.

With just one win from six races — roughly 1 in every 6 — Fighting Falcon is not yet a horse you'd describe as reliable, but he's a horse worth following right now. Horses that break their duck and do so in improving fashion can sometimes carry that momentum forward, and with an active trainer behind him, the next few weeks will tell us a great deal about whether this is the start of something or just a welcome moment in the sun.