One Cool Bear

The recent form makes for sobering reading: a seventh, two fourths, a blank entry suggesting a missed run, an eleventh, and a sixth. A pair of fourth-place finishes hints that One Cool Bear can occasionally get competitive, but the eleventh suggests that on a bad day, this is a horse that can find itself well out of its depth. Jockey Adam Caffrey has been in the saddle for ten of those thirteen races and is still looking for his first win aboard the horse — that kind of loyalty between horse and rider without reward is either a sign of faith or a long-running act of optimism, depending on how you look at it.

What is worth noting is the yard around this horse. McGuinness has sent out 39 winners already this season, which tells you the team clearly knows how to prepare horses to win races. One Cool Bear has raced just once in the last two days, so it is very much an active project right now. Whether the trainer can find the right opportunity to unlock a first victory remains to be seen, but with a barn full of winners and a horse still young enough to improve, the door is not completely closed just yet.