Briery Butterfly

Henry Daly trains her out of Ludlow in Shropshire, a yard that has sent out 17 winners already this season, so this is clearly not a team short of know-how. Daly is openly fond of her — and openly exasperated. He describes her as "knocking on the door pretty loudly," which is trainer-speak for: we keep turning up, we keep running well, and someone keeps beating us to it. The most recent example came at Huntingdon, where she finished second by a length to a horse called Delta Blues Belle, who Daly reckons was exceptionally well placed for that race. His description of jockey Harry Skelton laughing as he went past David Bass on the line is the kind of detail that tells you everything — it was that kind of defeat, the sort that stings because it was so nearly yours.

She has raced six times at the lower end of the sport — Class 5, which is essentially the entry-level tier of British racing — without a win. That might sound discouraging, but her consistent placings at that level suggest she is competitive there and not simply making up the numbers. Daly is weighing up whether to step her up slightly in class, possibly into a race open to horses rated up to 95, which would be a meaningful jump in quality. The fact he is even considering it, rather than persisting at the same level hoping the win finally comes, suggests he believes there is more in the tank.

Briery Butterfly is not a headline horse, not yet. But she is the kind of horse that racing is quietly full of — talented, dependable, and in search of that one day when everything clicks and nobody laughs going past.