Courtbrack Boy

The recent form tells an interesting story. That string of 2-4-2 finishes in his last few outings shows a horse that is consistently running somewhere in the mix — second, fourth, second — rather than trailing in at the back. The 15th-place finish in there is the outlier, one of those days that every horse has, but the bookending placings suggest it's not the whole picture. He's not a horse falling apart; he's a horse that keeps finishing close without ever quite closing the deal.

John Shinnick has had five attempts to unlock a win on Courtbrack Boy and is yet to manage it — 0 from 5 together is a partnership that hasn't found its breakthrough moment. Whether that changes is anyone's guess, but they clearly keep coming back to each other, which suggests the team at least believes the combination is worth persisting with.

Trainer Terence O'Brien operates out of Carrigtoohill in County Cork and has had 10 winners on the board this season, so the yard clearly knows how to get horses over the line. That makes Courtbrack Boy something of an anomaly in the string — a horse that keeps running, keeps placing, but hasn't yet given O'Brien that moment of satisfaction. With the horse raced as recently as yesterday and still active, the campaign is very much ongoing. Whether the win that has eluded him across nine races finally arrives is the question that makes Courtbrack Boy worth keeping an eye on.