Passing Diamond

Overall, Passing Diamond has won 2 races and finished in the placed positions 5 times from 9 outings — a win rate of roughly 1 in every 4 to 5 races, or 22% if you want the number. That is a solid return, and the recent form tells an even more encouraging story. Reading the last six runs from most recent backwards: win, win, third, third, then a blank run, then a sixth. Two wins back-to-back is the kind of momentum that gets people paying attention.

Where it gets slightly puzzling is the class picture. Passing Diamond's two wins have not come at the top level — it has actually failed to win in 3 races at Class 4, the tier where you might expect a horse in this kind of form to be competitive. Both victories have come at a different level entirely. That gap between form and class is something worth watching as the season develops.

Ground conditions matter too. On normal ground, Passing Diamond has won 2 of 5 races — a 40% win rate, which is genuinely impressive. That means when the track is neither bone-hard nor churned up by rain, this horse turns up and delivers. In racing, finding the right conditions for a horse is half the battle, and Ben Haslam's yard — which has sent out 35 winners already this season, marking it as one of the more productive operations around — clearly knows when to aim it.

With the horse having raced just yesterday and two wins already banked in May alone, Passing Diamond is very much a horse in the form of its life right now. Whether it can step up and win at a higher grade remains the open question, but for anyone watching racing at Hexham this spring, this is exactly the kind of horse worth keeping an eye on.