Zuul

Zuul has managed five placed finishes from those 21 races, which means he has threatened without ever quite delivering. His recent form tells a similar story — third, fourth, fifth, fourth in his last completed runs, always competitive enough to be noticed, never quite good enough to win. He has been placed in roughly 1 in every 4 races across his career, which suggests he is no pushover, just a horse that seems to find one or two others a little too good on the day.

The partnership with jockey Nathan Moscrop has been the most consistent feature of Zuul's career — they have raced together 11 times — but that combination has yet to produce a winner. Rebecca Menzies, who trains Zuul from her yard in Morden, Durham, has been in excellent form this season with 36 winners sent out, which makes Zuul something of an exception in a yard clearly capable of winning races. When Menzies first took Zuul on, she noted he had run four times previously under Mick Appleby, with a third place at Stratford his best effort, and that he would likely be seen at his best on faster spring ground. Most of his racing has come at Class 5 level — the bread-and-butter tier of jump racing — where he has run 16 times without winning, a record that is hard to argue with.

The honest truth is that Zuul is a horse who competes reliably without threatening to win, at a level where the competition is not especially fierce. At eight years old, a first win is not impossible, but the evidence does not make it look likely. What he does offer is consistency — he places, he keeps racing, and he was out on the track just yesterday. Some horses are stars. Zuul is something different: a regular, turning up week after week and giving his the yard exactly enough to keep hoping.