India Gold

What makes that Musselburgh victory genuinely surprising is the context. India Gold had spent most of its time running in Class 5 company — the bread-and-butter, lower-end races — without winning any of its 3 attempts there. To then go and land a top-level Class 2 on your first career win is a bit like someone failing their driving test three times and then immediately winning a Formula 2 race. It raises real questions about whether India Gold had simply been placed in the wrong races, or whether that November day was a flash of brilliance that may be difficult to repeat. The honest answer is nobody knows yet.

The horse is trained by Gay Kelleway, based at Exning in Suffolk, a yard that has sent out 2 winners so far this season. Kelleway is one of the few women to have ridden a Classic winner as a jockey, which gives the yard a certain pedigree even when the numbers are modest. Recent form for India Gold reads 9-6-1-3-4-4 from most recent backwards, meaning that Class 2 win sits right at the top of a sequence that otherwise shows the horse finishing mid-pack or further back. Racing just one day ago, India Gold is clearly still active and being tested — and the big question now is whether the team can find another race that suits as well as Musselburgh did that autumn afternoon.