Georgie's Malt

The recent form makes for difficult reading. Over the last six runs, the best finish has been a fourth place, with an eighth-place effort at either end of that sequence. There is no obvious upward curve here, no sign of a horse that is slowly finding its feet. Ewan Whillans, who trains the horse from his yard in Hawick in the Scottish Borders, clearly knows what he is doing — his team has sent out 28 winners already this season, which is a healthy return for a yard of that size. The puzzle is why Georgie's Malt has so consistently failed to convert.

At Class 4 level, where Georgie's Malt has run five times without a win, it is competing in the mid-tier of British racing — not the glamour events, but races that genuinely competitive horses at this level are expected to win now and then. Zero from five at that grade simply means the horse has not been good enough to beat the horses put in front of it. Whether that changes is the question worth watching. Georgie's Malt raced just yesterday, so this is very much a horse in active campaigning — the story is still being written, even if the early chapters have been frustrating.