Kimi De Mai

That yard is run by W P Mullins, based at Muine Bheag in County Carlow, and right now it is operating at a quite extraordinary level — 230 winners sent out in the current season alone. To put that in perspective, most racing yards are delighted to send out 30 or 40 winners in a year. When a trainer is firing at that volume, the horses around them tend to be well-placed and well-prepared, which means Kimi De Mai is almost certainly not lacking in quality of training. The wins just haven't come yet.

The recent form is genuinely interesting if you look past the surface. The sequence reads 7th, 3rd, 3rd, 5th, 14th, 3rd going back through the last six races — and what stands out is the recovery. After that heavy defeat in the middle of the sequence, Kimi De Mai has come back and placed twice in a row. A horse that bounces back from a bad run rather than fading away entirely is usually telling you something worth listening to. The 6-year-old is clearly in the form of its life right now by recent standards, and with two consecutive third-place finishes, a first win feels closer than the overall record suggests. The question is whether it can finally convert that consistency into a victory before the opportunity passes.