Karthala

The recent form tells a similar story. Looking at the last six races, the figures read 5-5-8-5 with a couple of interruptions, and a run just yesterday keeps Karthala firmly in the mix as an active racer. Finishing fifth repeatedly suggests a horse that performs consistently without ever threatening the podium, and that middle-of-the-pack pattern is something the team will be keen to break.

Karthala has been tried six times at Class 5, which is essentially the entry-level tier of British racing, and has yet to win there either. That is the level where a horse is expected to find its feet and rack up a first victory, so going 0 from 6 at that grade does raise questions about whether there is a win in the locker — or whether the team needs to find a specific set of conditions that really suits this horse.

The trainer, Jennie Candlish, operates out of Basford in Staffordshire and has been in fine form this season, sending out 61 winners — a yard clearly capable of getting horses to win races. With that kind of firepower behind Karthala, the belief is presumably still there that the right race and the right day will come. Sometimes horses take longer to find their feet, and a trainer firing on all cylinders gives this one the best possible chance of turning a place into a first career victory.