Dubai Bling

Trained by Hugo Palmer out of Malpas in Cheshire, Dubai Bling is part of a yard that has been in fine form this season, sending out 66 winners — a number that tells you this is a well-run operation with horses in good shape. Palmer has a reputation for placing his horses carefully, and Dubai Bling's consistent placed efforts suggest it is being aimed at races where it genuinely belongs rather than being thrown in over its head.

Now four years old, Dubai Bling is at the age where horses often take a step forward and start translating those near-misses into wins. The fact that it raced just one day ago shows it is fit and active, and that sequence of recent form — second, second, fourth, fifth, second, then the win — reads like a horse that has been knocking on the door for a while. The fifth-place finish is the one blip; everything else suggests a horse that competes hard and finishes close. Whether it can rediscover the winning feeling it last had at Haydock nearly two years ago is the question, but the building blocks are clearly there.