Invitorio

His first win came at Redcar back in October 2024, and for a long stretch after that, the victories dried up. Trainer Ruth Carr — who operates out of Stillington in North Yorkshire and has sent out an impressive 63 winners already this season — admitted as recently as April that the horse had become "a bit frustrating." That is the honest kind of assessment you rarely hear, and it tells you something about what the yard had been waiting on. Patience, eventually, paid off.

What changed the mood was a performance at Catterick, where Invitorio ran well despite drawing a difficult starting position. That promising run pointed toward Southwell, and on 15 April 2026, the horse delivered — winning there and putting an end to the wait. His recent form reads 1-2-9-8-7-6 from the last six races, most recent first, and that tells the whole story in miniature: a rough patch, signs of life, then a win. The direction of travel matters here.

Clifford Lee rides him most often, having been in the saddle for 6 of his races together and winning 1 of them — a win rate of around 1 in 6, which is respectable for a horse operating at this level. Invitorio typically lines up in Class 5 races, the bread-and-butter level of British racing, where he has won 1 from 7 attempts. It is a competitive tier and finishing in the first three as often as he has suggests he belongs there, even if turning those places into wins has been the challenge.

He raced just 12 days ago and is currently active, so there may well be more opportunities ahead in the coming weeks. Whether the Southwell win signals a turning point or proves a one-off is the question worth watching. On recent evidence, Ruth Carr's yard clearly thinks the former.