Larkins Lane

The recent run of form paints a slightly more encouraging picture. Finishing fourth and fifth in back-to-back races suggests Larkins Lane has been running with some consistency at the mid-table end of the field, and at seven years old there is still time for things to click. Two runs where it failed to finish — marked as non-completions in the record — are the less comfortable entries, though without knowing the circumstances it would be unfair to read too much into them.

Larkins Lane is trained by P J Rothwell, who operates out of Tinahely in County Wicklow. With 35 winners sent out this season, Rothwell's yard is clearly a productive one — that is a meaningful number of winners for any training operation — so Larkins Lane is arguably underperforming relative to the stable around it. Whether that changes is the interesting question. The horse has a trainer with a live, functioning team behind it; the talent in the yard is proven. It is just a case of whether Larkins Lane can find a race that suits it well enough to finally get off the mark.