Ask A Sainte

What makes the situation more interesting is who is doing the searching. Ask A Sainte is trained by Olly Murphy at his yard in Wilmcote, Warwickshire — one of the most productive operations in Britain right now. Murphy's team has sent out 146 winners this season alone, which is a genuinely impressive number. That kind of output means Murphy knows how to place a horse and find the right race at the right time. A horse sitting in a yard that busy, still running without a win, is more likely being carefully managed than forgotten about.

The recent form tells a mixed story. Ask A Sainte's last six results read 4-5-4-9-9-3, with that third-place finish the most recent of the lot — just one day ago. The two nines in the middle of that sequence suggest some difficult outings, but the horse has bounced back either side of them with more competitive efforts. Finishing third most recently, after two poor runs, hints that Ask A Sainte may be finding a bit of form at the right time.

With zero wins from six races, patience is clearly needed. But sitting in a yard firing in winners at the rate of nearly three a week, and coming off a placed effort just yesterday, Ask A Sainte is a horse worth keeping an eye on. The first win might not be far away.