My Noble Lord

The profile of those wins tells you a lot. Over distances between a mile and six furlongs and two miles, My Noble Lord has won 3 of its 5 races — a 60% win rate that suggests the yard has found exactly where this horse is most comfortable. It typically competes at Class 4, the solid middle tier of British racing, and wins 3 of its 8 races at that level, a 38% rate that marks it out as one of the more reliable performers in that company. The team at Oldcastle, Cheshire — trained by the joint operation of Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero, a yard that has sent out 43 winners already this season — clearly know what they have. Greenall and Guerriero noted back in November that they had always thought more of this horse than its early results suggested, and hinted that a weak physique may have held it back in its younger days.

The quotes from those around My Noble Lord point to a horse still on the way up. Jockey Jonjo O'Neill Jr described it after a run at Chepstow as a horse with a good attitude that would benefit from a stronger gallop through a race — the kind of comment that suggests it has more to give under the right circumstances. Former trainer Michael Bell was even more direct, calling it a horse that would "just keep getting better and better," and pointing out that at 540 kilograms, there is a lot of horse still to grow into. The caveat is ground: fast summer conditions do not suit it, and the team are likely to manage its campaign accordingly, possibly pointing toward an autumn target at Haydock.

It is already five and already winning — its most recent victory came at Bangor-on-Dee just four weeks ago. But the sense from everyone involved is that the best is genuinely still to come.