Nostrum

The peak of his career so far came at Newmarket, where he has been a different animal entirely. He won there in September 2022 and again in July 2023, both in top-tier Class 1 company — the highest level of racing in Britain. Winning two from four at the same venue at that level is not a coincidence; it is a pattern. Something about that track suits him, whether the shape of the course, the fast, dry ground he tends to encounter there, or simply the way the race unfolds. On dry ground generally, he wins 2 from 6 races — about 1 in every 3 — which is a strong return at any level, let alone this one.

His partnership with Ryan Moore has also been striking. In six races together they have won three, which works out to exactly half — a remarkable number when you consider they have been racing against the best horses in the country. Moore is not a jockey who gets on bad horses, and that win rate suggests a real connection between horse and rider.

The snag is what has happened since that last Newmarket win. His recent form figures — finishes of eighth, sixteenth, unplaced, nineteenth, fourteenth, fourteenth — tell the story of a horse who has been struggling to land a blow. After a run at Goodwood where he travelled beautifully before fading badly in the final stages, his current trainer Michael Appleby was candid: the dead ground in the closing stages likely found him out, and he may not be quite as adaptable to softer conditions as they had hoped. The plan now is to drop him back to six furlongs and aim at races like the Lennox Stakes, with an ambitious longer-term target of a top French race at Longchamp.

Appleby's yard has sent out 79 winners this season, so this is not a stable short of confidence or knowhow. They clearly believe Nostrum still has something to offer — and if they find him the right conditions at the right track, Newmarket on a dry summer day probably still looms large in everyone's thinking.