Highfield Sunshine

The partnership with jockey Jason Hart is the defining relationship of its career so far, and it's a story without a happy ending yet. The two have been sent out together nine times and come back empty-handed every single time. That's not necessarily a criticism of either — some horses simply take longer to find their moment — but nine attempts together with no win is a statistic that starts to tell its own story.

Trained by John and Sean Quinn out of Norton in North Yorkshire, Highfield Sunshine is part of a yard that clearly knows how to get horses winning — 42 winners this season alone. The fact that this particular horse hasn't contributed to that tally despite 13 opportunities suggests it may need something specific to click: the right conditions, the right race, the right day. It has spent most of its career competing at Class 5, which is the bread-and-butter, everyday level of British racing — and even there, a win has proved elusive across eight attempts.

What is slightly encouraging is the recent form. Looking at the last six races in reverse order — 5, 3, 6, 5, 7, 11 — there is at least movement in the right direction. The most recent run was an eleventh, which is grim, but the run before that was a seventh, and there was a third-place finish tucked in there too. The form is patchy and hard to read with confidence, but a horse that ran third not long ago is not completely without hope. It raced just yesterday, so it is clearly being kept busy by the team, which suggests they still believe there is a race to be won somewhere down the line. Whether Highfield Sunshine eventually proves them right is the open question.