I Am Me

What followed was genuinely encouraging. I Am Me was sent to Ascot — Royal Ascot, to be clear, which is as big a stage as British racing offers — and ran respectably. The horse that finished just ahead of him in that race went on to be narrowly beaten in the Britannia Stakes, one of the most competitive races of the whole festival. That is not a bad benchmark at all, and it suggested Murphy had a horse operating at a reasonable level for his age and experience.

Since then, though, the results have dried up. I Am Me has not won in his last six races, and the recent Pontefract run was particularly disappointing — fitted with blinkers for the first time, he was too free early on and never really settled into his race. That kind of behaviour burns energy a horse needs for the finish. The stat that stands out is his record at Class 4 level, the grade he most often competes at: zero wins from six races. For context, his overall win rate is just 1 in every 15 races, around 7%, and even across his preferred trip of a mile to a mile and a quarter, he has won only 1 of 10 attempts. The numbers suggest a horse who is consistent enough to place — six times in all — but has found winning tougher than that bright debut promised.

He has had a 63-day break since that Pontefract run, which gives Murphy time to work on the settling issues and plot a fresh route forward. The yard has sent out 14 winners this season, so the operation is clearly in form. I Am Me arrives at his next race as a horse that has shown real quality on his day, beaten some decent rivals, but is yet to fully deliver on that early promise. Whether he can is the question worth following.