Justlikefire

Those two placed finishes — both shown as second place in the recent form — offer a flicker of encouragement in an otherwise frustrating picture. A horse that can get its nose in front of most of the field is one that belongs on a racecourse; it just hasn't been able to get to the front when it counts. The other runs tell a more modest story: a fourth, a tenth, and two blanks where it barely featured.

Trainer Jennie Candlish, based in Basford, Staffordshire, is clearly no slouch — her yard has sent out 61 winners already this season, which is a seriously productive operation. That makes Justlikefire something of an outlier in the stable. At the level it typically competes — Class 5, the entry-level tier of British racing — it has run three times without winning once. That's the division where horses are supposed to find their feet and pick up a race or two. So far, it hasn't clicked. Whether that changes soon is the question Candlish will be working to answer.