Miss Jaffa Cake

The six-year-old is trained by Polly Gundry out of Ottery St Mary in Devon, a small yard that has punched out four winners this season, so there is clearly some ability flowing through the operation. Regular jockey Ben Poste has been aboard for six of those nine races and the pair have yet to get off the mark together, which makes you wonder whether a change of approach — a different track, different conditions, a fresh face in the saddle — might shake something loose.

Her recent form figures make for sober reading: a fifth, two gaps where she did not finish, and a sixth and seventh in her other runs. She has been competitive in the sense that she has been in the race, but she has not threatened at the business end. She typically lines up in Class 4 company, which is mid-tier racing, and has gone 0 from 4 at that level. Given she has not managed a placing anywhere across nine attempts, it is hard to make a case that a step up in class is the answer either.

At six years old, Miss Jaffa Cake is not a young project still finding her feet — she is a horse whose profile needs to start showing some progression soon if her racing career is going to build into anything. She raced just yesterday, so she is active and being given chances. Whether one of those chances eventually clicks into something better is the question her trainer will be quietly trying to answer.