Arrycan

The recent form tells a story of a horse still trying. Across the last six races, the finishing positions read 9, 2, 12, 5, 5, 3 — working from oldest to newest. That second place is the eye-catching one, a reminder that the ability is still there, flickering. But a 12 in the middle of that sequence suggests some inconsistency, and no win in the last six races is a pattern worth noting at this stage of a career.

His regular jockey Richard Deegan has now ridden him ten times without a win — that is 0 from 10 together, which is a run of bad luck for both of them. It does not necessarily mean anything sinister; sometimes a partnership just does not click in the way results need it to. But ten races is a decent sample, and the scoreboard remains blank between them.

Arrycan is trained by Nick Scholfield at Lambourn in Berkshire, and the yard is in decent form this season with 19 winners already sent out. The fact that Arrycan raced just yesterday shows this horse is still a working part of the stable's plans — not a horse being nursed toward retirement, but one still being aimed at races and expected to run his race. Whether he can end that near-three-year winning drought is the question that hangs over everything now.