Sunday Soldier

Those wins were not at a modest level either. The most recent of them, in April 2024, came in a Class 2 race — one of the top races in Britain — which represents the high-water mark of Sunday Soldier's career. Combined with a first win at the same track in December 2023, there was clearly a period when everything clicked: the track, the conditions, the horse in peak form. Richie McLernon tends to be the man in the saddle when things go well, having ridden Sunday Soldier to 3 of those 4 wins from 9 rides together — winning roughly 1 in every 3 times they team up, which is an excellent ratio.

Conditions matter enormously here. On wet or muddy ground, Sunday Soldier has won 3 of 8 races — that's 38%, nearly 2 in every 5 — compared to a much patchier record when the track dries out. Similarly, the horse hits its stride over longer trips, winning 2 of just 5 races at a mile and six furlongs to two miles. Both of those clues point in the same direction: a horse that wants soft ground and a proper test of stamina to show its best.

The puzzle right now is that Sunday Soldier has not won in its last six races, and it has never won when racing at Class 4 — the level it typically competes at — going 0 from 12 at that grade. It raced just yesterday, so it is firmly in the thick of another season. Trained by the partnership of David Killahena and Graeme McPherson out of Stow-on-the-Wold, the yard has sent out 18 winners this season, so the team is in form even if Sunday Soldier has not yet found the winner's enclosure. Whether a return to Musselburgh on a wet day can unlock that old magic remains the interesting question.