Colby Mayfield

The recent form tells an interesting story. The last six runs read 8, 9, 3, 3, 5, and a pulled-up finish — and if you look past the rough patches, those back-to-back third places suggest the horse had a real purple patch where it was running consistently well. A ninth and an eighth either side of that spell show it can blow hot and cold, which is pretty typical of a horse still searching for the right conditions to bring out its best.

Colby Mayfield raced just one day ago, so this is very much a horse in the thick of an active campaign. It is trained by John and Rhys Flint, a father-and-son yard based at Kenfig Hill in Bridgend, Wales — a small operation that has quietly sent out seven winners already this season. For a yard of that size, seven winners is a genuinely solid return, and it suggests the Flints know how to place their horses well. Whether they can find the right race to get Colby Mayfield off the mark remains the key question — but given that the horse has been placed before and is clearly still being campaigned actively, the team clearly believe there is a win in it somewhere.