Jerk

The recent form makes for uncomfortable reading too. Looking at the last six races, Jerk has finished ninth, tenth, fifth, and ninth, with two runs where it failed to finish at all. That fifth place is the one flicker of something better, but it sits surrounded by performances that suggest a horse struggling to compete at whatever level it is being asked to race at. The partnership with jockey Patrick M O'Brien has produced nothing in ten races together — not a single win from ten attempts — which tells its own story.

Jerk is trained by William Durkan at Sandyford in County Dublin, and the yard itself is clearly capable of producing winners — thirteen this season alone — so the problem does not lie with the training operation. Jerk has had a short break of 36 days since its last run, which occasionally sharpens a horse up, though there is little in this record to suggest the gap will dramatically change what has been a very consistent pattern of disappointment. Sometimes a horse just finds its level, and the challenge for the team now is finding a race where Jerk can finally get its head in front.