Hostility

What makes this particularly interesting is the level at which it competes. Class 5 is towards the lower end of the racing ladder, the kind of company where horses go to find races they can win rather than races that will test their limits. Hostility has run seven times at that level and is still yet to score — which means even in easier company, something is preventing it from getting its nose in front. The recent form figures of 7-9-4-4-4-4 tell a consistent story: three fourth-place finishes in a row suggest a horse that is running respectably without threatening to win, and the last two results — ninth and seventh — show a slight dip even from that modest standard.

O'Meara's yard is clearly in excellent shape right now, having sent out 107 winners this season, so the training operation is not the problem. With a string that busy and that successful, Hostility is something of an outlier — a horse that keeps racing, keeps placing occasionally, but has not found its moment yet. It raced just yesterday, so the yard are clearly persisting with it, and at four years old there is still time for the picture to change. But for now, Hostility is a horse that racegoers will recognise as the kind of honest, hard-trying animal that fills out a field and occasionally collects a small slice of prize money without ever threatening to steal the show.