Alandownunder

That said, context matters. Three-year-olds are often still finding their feet, and the fact that Alandownunder raced just one day ago tells you the team around it have not lost faith. Horses improve, and the willingness to keep running it suggests those in the yard believe there is something worth uncovering.

The trainer, Kieran P Cotter, operates out of Portarlington in County Laois and has sent out 7 winners already this season — a solid return that shows the yard knows how to get a horse to the line first. Cotter is not a big-volume operation firing horses out by the dozen, which makes each runner more deliberate. If Alandownunder is getting runs, there is likely a plan behind it. Whether this horse is the one to reward that patience remains to be seen, but with a yard in form and a young horse still developing, the story is far from over.