Dayman

What makes Dayman an interesting case is the gap between how he looks and how he performs. When trainer Dominic Ffrench Davis picked him up after he failed to sell at the Newmarket sales, he was immediately struck by a horse who is genuinely easy on the eye and causes no trouble at home. The yard actually used him as a lead horse for their younger horses — essentially a teacher's assistant — which is a compliment to his temperament, even if it hints that expectations of further wins had faded somewhat.

The early promise was real enough. His first trainer, Dave Loughnane, described him after that debut win at Wolverhampton in March 2022 as a "proper horse" — one who had always made work look easy, and who had physically and mentally grown into himself after a slow start as a two-year-old. The advice at the time was to be careful not to pitch him into races too deep too soon. In the end, the cautious route through the ranks has been his career: he competes mainly at Class 4, the fourth tier of British racing, where he has won 1 of his 10 races at that level.

Liam Keniry, his most regular jockey, has yet to find the winning formula in seven rides together. Ffrench Davis's yard has sent out 10 winners this season, so the stable is in form — it is just that Dayman, who raced as recently as yesterday, has not been the one to add to that tally. He is a horse who clearly has admirers and a trainer who still believes a win or two is in him. Whether that belief is eventually rewarded, after 48 months and counting since his last victory, is the question his story keeps posing.