Havana Joy

At four years old, she still has time on her side, and her recent form suggests she has not given up trying. Her last six runs read 6-dash-6-9-3-3 from most recent back, and those back-to-back thirds from her earlier efforts show she can get herself into a race. The gap in the sequence — shown as a dash — indicates a run for which finishing position data is unavailable, so it is hard to read too much into the full picture. What is clear is that she raced just yesterday, so she is very much an active, current competitor.

Her regular partnership is with jockey Jason Watson, who has been aboard for six of her nine races without either of them managing to find the winner's enclosure together. That is not necessarily a damning verdict on either horse or rider — sometimes a pairing just needs the right race to click. Charles Hills, who trains her at his Lambourn yard in Berkshire, has had a productive season with 31 winners sent out, so the operation clearly knows how to win races. The question is when Havana Joy will be the one to deliver that result. A horse who places as often as she does without winning suggests the team may still be working to find exactly the right opportunity — the right conditions, the right field — to finally get her off the mark.