Argentum

What makes that record particularly hard to paper over is where Argentum has been racing. Class 6 is the lowest tier of British racing, the entry-level grade where the fields are weakest and the opportunities most accessible. Argentum has run seven times at that level and come away empty-handed every time. When a horse can't find a win at the bottom of the ladder, it raises genuine questions about whether one is coming at all.

That said, Crawley's yard has sent out four winners already this season, so the operation clearly knows how to get a horse to the line first. Argentum raced just yesterday, which tells you the team still believes there's something worth working with. Three places from fourteen races means the horse hasn't been an embarrassment — it has finished in the top three on occasion and isn't simply making up the numbers every time out. But the gap between placing and winning is everything in this sport, and Argentum has been living on the wrong side of it for its entire career so far. Whether that changes anytime soon is the only question left worth asking.