Come On Over

That second-place finish is worth pausing on, because it shows the ability is somewhere in there. A horse that can finish runner-up one race and then drift back to seventh the next is one that hasn't quite put it all together consistently — and at Class 5, the lowest level of British flat racing, that inconsistency matters. Come On Over has had five attempts at this level and not won any of them, which makes the next step forward harder to predict.

The stable context is encouraging, at least. David O'Meara is one of the most prolific trainers in the north of England, and his yard has fired out 107 winners already this season — that's a serious operation with the know-how to get horses right. The fact that Come On Over raced just yesterday means this is very much an active campaign, and O'Meara's team clearly hasn't given up on finding the right opportunity. Sometimes it just takes a horse a little longer to figure things out, and with a trainer sending out winners at that rate, the support structure is as good as it gets at this level.