Kilt

The problem is that win now sits 23 months in the past, and Kilt has not come close to repeating it across his last six races, finishing no better than sixth in that run. The recent sequence — 10th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 7th, 12th, reading back to front — suggests a horse who is consistently in the mix without ever threatening to break through. He raced just yesterday, so the yard are clearly keeping him busy, but busy and winning are two different things.

There is one thread worth following. Over a mile and one or two furlongs — essentially a middle distance, longer than a sprint but not a full stamina test — Kilt has won 1 of 5 races, a 20% win rate that works out to roughly one in every five attempts. That is a genuinely solid return and stands out sharply against his overall record of one win from 14 across all distances. It tells you there is a specific version of Kilt that works, and his trainer P J Rothwell, who operates out of Tinahely in County Wicklow and has sent out an impressive 36 winners already this season, will know better than anyone how to find it again. A yard with that kind of output clearly knows what it is doing — the question is whether Kilt can be pointed back to those conditions and rediscover the form that made him a Newmarket winner.