Loup De Maulde

The headline number, though, is the one at Huntingdon. Three wins from just four races at that track is a freakish record — for context, he wins roughly 1 in 5 races everywhere else in his career, but at Huntingdon he wins 3 in 4. That is not luck; that is a horse who genuinely suits the track. His first career win came there in November 2022, and trainer Robbie Llewellyn — who operates out of Wroughton in Wiltshire and has sent out 14 winners this season — has been smart enough to keep coming back. The yard also knows what ground brings the best out of him: on wet or muddy ground he has won 4 of his 7 races, a 57% win rate that puts him in an entirely different category to the horse you see on dry days.

Llewellyn described him as having improved by 34lb in a single season, winning four races along the way — a remarkable leap that suggests the yard found a gear in him that nobody had quite located before. There was talk of a Cheltenham Festival entry through a Pertemps qualifier, with Llewellyn quietly confident he could place competitively on the big stage. That gives you a sense of how highly the yard rates him at his best.

The honest caveat is that his last win came at Taunton in March 2024, now 25 months ago. His recent form reads 2-3-4-4-7-1, so there are glimpses — that recent win and a string of places — but he has not been able to string anything together the way he once did. It is also worth noting that Jack Tudor, his most regular rider with 10 races together, has yet to ride him to a win. At Class 5, the level he usually competes at, he has only managed 1 win from 9 races, which is a 11% win rate and hints that even on a good day there is competition to beat. He raced just yesterday, which tells you he is still in the mix — the question is whether wet ground and a return to Huntingdon might unlock him one more time.