Asta La Vista

That said, Asta La Vista ran just yesterday, which tells you this is a horse very much in the thick of its campaign right now. The recent form reads 2-5-3-4-4 going back through the last six races, and there is at least a sliver of encouragement in there. A second and a third show the horse can get its head in front of most rivals on a good day — the issue is getting it in front of all of them. The pair of fifth and fourth-place finishes do little to suggest a dramatic improvement is imminent, but form in racing is rarely a straight line.

Where there is genuine reason for optimism is in the stable behind the horse. Charlie Longsdon operates out of Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire and has sent out 33 winners already this season — that is a yard in good form, with horses clearly being well-prepared and arriving at the track ready to run. When a trainer is firing at that kind of rate, even a horse that has not yet won deserves a second look, because the ammunition around it is clearly live. Longsdon knows how to find the right opportunity for a horse, and that experience matters when you are trying to place a tricky one.

Asta La Vista is not yet a winner, but it is not a spent force either. Five years old, active, placed twice, and trained by someone who clearly has the yard humming — the story is not over. Plenty of horses take time to figure out, and when they do, the wait tends to feel very short indeed.