Miss Kassiopi

Her recent form makes for intriguing reading. After back-to-back sixth-place finishes, she has rattled off four consecutive placed runs, including two seconds and a third in her last four outings. That kind of sequence suggests a horse building toward something — getting sharper, finding her rhythm — and with a race just yesterday, she is clearly in good health and active work.

The partnership with jockey Gavin Sheehan is the longest-running relationship in her career, with eight races together producing no wins but presumably plenty of those near-misses. It is a combination that knows each other well, even if the winner's enclosure has so far eluded them. Trainer Richard Bandey, based in Tadley in Hampshire, has had 14 winners out of the yard this season, so the operation clearly knows how to get a horse to win — the question is simply when Miss Kassiopi will join that list.

She typically competes at Class 5, which is the bread-and-butter level of British racing — competitive enough that winning is never easy, but the level at which a horse of her profile ought to be finding opportunities. Going 0 from 7 at that grade is the one genuinely puzzling figure in her record. The placed runs prove she belongs there; the absence of a win remains the mystery. For anyone following her, the next few races feel like they genuinely matter — the form is pointing upward, and at some point that consistency has to pay off.