Moonlight Artist

Joe Tizzard's yard at Milborne Port has been in fine form this season, sending out 58 winners, so Moonlight Artist is no flag-bearer for the stable. He competes almost exclusively at Class 5, the entry level of British racing, where he has managed just 1 win from 15 attempts — roughly 1 in every 15 races at that level. For a horse operating at the bottom rung, that is a thin return, and it speaks to a horse who has taken time to put it all together.

His most recent win came at Warwick on 24 April 2025, almost exactly a year ago — and it sounds like it was a long time coming. Jockey Brendan Powell, who knows this horse better than most having ridden him in 13 of his 25 races, was candid after the race. He admitted Moonlight Artist had been sent off favourite or at short odds on multiple occasions without delivering, before finally clicking into gear that day. "This should do his confidence the world of good," Powell said — the kind of comment that tells you a horse has been promising more than it produces. Powell's overall record on the horse reads 1 win from 13 rides together, the same 1-in-12 ratio as Moonlight Artist's overall career, so the combination has not exactly set the world alight.

Since that Warwick win, the horse has gone six races without troubling the scorer — his recent form reads a string of mid-pack finishes, not disgraces but nothing to get excited about either. He raced as recently as yesterday, which shows he is fit and active. His first win came at Exeter back in November 2023, so he now has two victories across nearly two years of trying.

At 8 years old and with form tailing off, Moonlight Artist feels like a horse whose the yard will be hoping that Warwick spark can be rekindled. Whether there is another win in him remains the question — Powell seemed to think so after Warwick, but six blank races since then have done little to confirm it.