Lord Snootie

His recent form makes for mixed reading: a third and a second in his last six races suggest the spark is still there, but an eighth and a tenth in among those runs show the inconsistency that has followed him throughout his career. He raced just yesterday, so this is a horse very much still in active service, still being pointed at races week to week.

The majority of Lord Snootie's races have come in Class 2 company — some of the better races in Britain — and he has not won any of his six attempts at that level. That is not necessarily an embarrassment. Competing regularly at that standard simply means the team at Christian Williams's yard in Ogmore-By-Sea believe he belongs in decent company, even if the winning post has stayed out of reach. Williams has had 25 winners this season, so it is a yard clearly capable of getting horses to win; Lord Snootie just hasn't been one of them lately.

Jack Tudor has ridden him in 14 of his 19 races, winning once together — that's 1 win from 14, or roughly 1 in every 14 rides. It is a long-standing partnership, which counts for something in terms of understanding, even if the results have been hard to come by. What keeps Lord Snootie interesting is that he keeps showing up. A horse that places as often as he has is clearly competitive enough to warrant the entry fee, and at nine years old, still racing actively, there is something admirable about that persistence — even if Warwick on a cold December afternoon remains the peak of the story so far.