Marten Julian’s Weekly Roundup 8 December 2025

I readily admit that I go on about this sort of thing quite a lot, but there was an outstanding example of a horse apparently improving dramatically on his previous recent form last Monday at Ayr.

King Gris was hammered in the betting for the second division of the extended 2m 3f 0-100 handicap hurdle from around 6/4 the night before to 4/11 despite being 5lbs out of the handicap, running off 83 rather than 78.

He was having his first run for 187 days and making his debut for Gordon Elliott, having previously been trained by Patrick Morris.

Ridden by Sean Bowen, he was always travelling well and was pushed out to beat Red Cadillac by two lengths.

Now we know that a good time to land a touch is when a horse is returning from a break or having its first run for a new yard. The connections can put forward any number of reasons for the improved form in such circumstances, but even allowing for that this was a phenomenal step up from his last appearance.

That was at my local course in a 2m 1f novices’ hurdle at Cartmel back in May, where the five-year-old finished 34 lengths ninth of 10, always in arrears and looking totally devoid of ability.

The time before at Aintree in April he had again been tailed-off, beaten over 62 lengths, having been beaten almost 90 lengths on his hurdling debut at Bangor earlier in the month.

I’ve tried to look at each of those runs but the horse is so far behind he’s off the screen for the second half of those races.

However, a look back at the horse’s point-to-point form tells a rather different story.

On his debut in April 2024 he finished fourth at Tattersalls Farm to Classical Creek, who is now also with Gordon Elliott and won a 22-runner maiden hurdle by eight lengths at Navan last month. Second in that point-to-point was Game On, a winner for Noel Meade and now rated 113, and third was Tyson Magoo, a novice hurdler rated 99 with Sue Smith.

Beaten 14 lengths by the winner represented a fair level of form, earning a point-to-point rating of 81. King Gris started at just 4/1 to win that race.

He was then pulled up the following month before reappearing seven months later in February, finishing a three-quarters of a length third to Inishcorker and Rowdy, the former now with Rebecca Curtis, for whom he’s finished second and third in two maiden hurdles, and the latter rated 95 and second of 24 from that mark at Cork on Sunday.

So, these two runs established that King Gris had a fair level of ability … potentially something in the region of the mid-90s … but it then raises the question of how this wasn’t evident, to any extent, when beaten 90 lengths, 63 lengths and 34 lengths in three weak novice hurdles.

This profile is, though, very familiar. A horse that shows ability in point-to-points, gets handicapped with three runs over an inadequate trip in novice/maiden hurdles and then gets into a handicap hurdle or chase off a mark rated on its hurdling form.

It’s a strategy that I first saw being used by Martin Pipe but it’s subsequently been adopted by a few low-profile yards.

Bye for now

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