Adrian

His recent form makes for interesting reading if you squint at it the right way. In his last six races he has finished third, second, third, eighth, tenth, and sixth — the most recent being that third place just yesterday, so he is very much still in training and still competing. The second and two thirds suggest a horse that can run a decent race on his day. The eighth and tenth are the other side of the coin.

Adrian spends most of his time in Class 6, which is the entry-level tier of British racing — the races where the competition is at its most accessible. You might think that would make winning easier, but Adrian has run ten times at that level and is yet to win any of them. That is not a crisis, but it is a puzzle. Jockey Aidan Keeley has been aboard five times without a winner between them, and while it would be unfair to pin that on either horse or rider alone, the partnership clearly hasn't found the magic formula yet.

His trainer, Bernard Llewellyn, operates out of Fochriw in Mid Glamorgan and has sent out seven winners already this season, so the yard clearly knows how to win races. Adrian, so far, has not been one of them. At nine, he is not a young horse still learning the ropes — he is an experienced campaigner who, you suspect, the team knows well enough by now. Whether there is a first win still in him is the open question. Racing has seen older horses finally break through, and four placed finishes from 20 races means he is not hopeless. But the clock, as they say, is ticking.