Give Me The Night

The recent form figures make for uncomfortable reading. Over the last six races, the best the horse has managed is fourth, with a string of sixth, seventh, and eighth-place finishes filling out the rest. In the world of horse racing, finishing eighth typically means the race was over long before the final stretch. There is no obvious upward curve here, no sense that a breakthrough is just around the corner — at least not based on what we can see.

Give Me The Night tends to line up in Class 5 company, which is where the sport's journeymen and works-in-progress compete — the entry level of the professional game. Even there, it has drawn a blank in all four attempts, which tells its own story. This is not a horse being tested above its level; it is competing at the easiest tier available and still waiting for things to click.

It is trained by Mark Rimell at Leafield in Oxfordshire, and there is no question the yard is capable — nine winners on the board already this season shows a team that knows how to get horses ready to win. The fact that Give Me The Night has raced as recently as yesterday means it is clearly fit and active, and Rimell has not given up on finding a race the horse can get competitive in. Sometimes it simply takes longer for younger horses to work things out, and at four years old there is still time. But right now, Give Me The Night is one of racing's most patient puzzles — a horse that keeps showing up without quite showing what it can do.