Zarathos

Zoom out to the full picture and the numbers tell a more patient story. Across 19 races, Zarathos has won twice and placed 11 times — a win rate of around 1 in every 9 races. That is not a horse that has been winning easily, but it is a horse that has been knocking on the door consistently. Eleven placings from 19 races means it has been competitive far more often than it has been out of the picture, which suggests it has ability — it just had not been quite finding the line first.

What makes those two recent wins genuinely interesting is the timing. For most of this career, Zarathos has been racing at Class 5 level — the lower end of the sport — and had drawn a blank there, going zero from eight. Then suddenly, two wins in a week. Something has shifted, whether that is fitness, confidence, or the team at Dylan Cunha's Newmarket yard finding the right conditions. Cunha has had a productive season, sending out 45 winners, and he clearly knows how to place a horse when it is ready.

The most recent form reads 1-1-4-12-2-7, which means two wins sandwiching a couple of quieter efforts. The 12th-place finish in that sequence is the one blip — but horses are not machines, and the response either side of it has been sharp. With Zarathos last racing just one day ago and clearly in the middle of a purple patch, the question now is whether the team can keep the momentum going. Back-to-back wins mid-season for a horse that had previously struggled to get its head in front — this is exactly the kind of story worth following.