State Of Madness

Mark Loughnane trains State Of Madness out of Rock Farm in Worcestershire, and his yard has been in decent form this season with 25 winners on the board. State Of Madness, though, has not contributed to that tally in a while. Its last win came at Newcastle on 2nd December 2025 — six months ago now — and the six races since have produced a sequence of 3-2-5-9-3-4. Read that right to left and you can see the horse was in good nick around the turn of the year, finishing second and third, before a troubled mid-period and a modest return to form more recently. Close enough to matter, but not close enough to win.

The bulk of its career has been spent at Class 6, which is the entry-level end of British racing — the bread-and-butter races where horses like State Of Madness make up the numbers week in, week out. It has won 2 of its 11 races at that level, which works out at roughly 1 in every 5 or 6 attempts — a respectable enough return for the grade. Its first career win came at Brighton in October 2025, with Newcastle following in December. Two different tracks, two wins in the space of a couple of months — that was the purple patch.

Joanna Mason has been the most regular partner, but the two have not clicked yet in five races together, with no wins to show from the combination. That is not unusual — finding the right jockey-horse rhythm can take time, and plenty of factors are out of anyone's hands on race day. State Of Madness raced just yesterday, so it is clearly being kept busy. Whether the winner's enclosure is around the corner or still a few frustrating near-misses away is the question Loughnane's team will be hoping to answer soon.