Neigh Botha

His last six races read 1-6-1-1-7-2 — three wins in that stretch, which is a remarkable late-career purple patch for any horse. He won at Warwick just this week, which means he heads into whatever comes next on the back of a fresh victory and full of confidence. The two blips in that sequence barely register when the surrounding form is this good.

The place where Neigh Botha really comes alive is Southwell. He has won 3 of his 7 races there — nearly half the time — and that kind of record at one track isn't a coincidence. Some horses simply suit a particular course, whether it's the shape of the bends, the surface, or something harder to pin down. When you see his name in a Southwell entry, you pay attention. His best distance also tells a story: over 1 mile 6 furlongs to 2 miles, he has won 4 of 9 races, almost 1 in every 2. That's a horse who finds his rhythm when asked to stay the trip.

He's trained by Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero out of Oldcastle in Cheshire — a yard that has sent out 43 winners this season alone, which is a serious operation by any measure. The most regular partnership in the saddle is with jockey Henry Brooke, who has ridden him 12 times for 2 wins together. His career started under a different trainer — he won his first race at Musselburgh in February 2022 — before joining Greenall and Guerriero, who have clearly found how to get the best out of him.

At nine years old, Neigh Botha isn't a horse people are tipping for big prizes in Class 1 company. He's a Class 4 performer who wins roughly 1 in every 15 races at that level — but strip that stat back and what you actually have is a horse peaking in form, loving a trip, owning one track, and winning races this week. That's not nothing. That's quite a lot, actually.