Newsreader

The most striking fact is Newsreader's love affair with Kempton Park. The horse has won three of its seven races at the track, a success rate of nearly 43 percent that sets it apart from everything else in its form book. That last Kempton win came on 6 November 2024, just over a year ago, suggesting the horse has since had a dry spell. The last six races have yielded only places — a fourth, a tenth, two sixths, a third, and a second — the kind of stretch that tests any racing partnership's patience. Yet Newsreader remains active, having raced only yesterday, which means there is still racing to come.

The horse performs noticeably better on wet or muddy ground, where it has won three of seven races (43 percent) compared to its overall record. This is the sort of detail that matters: trainers and jockeys use it to pick their moments. Over distances of seven furlongs to a mile, Newsreader has won three of twelve races. The horse typically runs in Class 4 company, the workmanlike tier of British racing where improvement becomes harder and consistency even more valuable.

Jockey Benoit De La Sayette has ridden Newsreader to three wins from eight races together — a 38 percent partnership win rate that is noticeably better than the horse's record overall. That kind of figure often suggests a good understanding between horse and rider. Trainer Tony Carroll, based at Cropthorne in Worcestershire, has the horse in a yard that has sent out 136 winners this season, a sign of a busy, professional operation. For Newsreader, the challenge now is to end that streak without a win and find its way back to the winner's circle, ideally at a track where it has already proven it belongs.