Misunderstood

The horse arrived at O'Meara's busy yard in Upper Helmsley, North Yorkshire, with a reputation built in France, where he apparently showed genuine class as a two-year-old. Something went wrong along the way — form dried up, the spark faded — and he crossed the Channel in search of a fresh start. O'Meara, whose yard has sent out an impressive 101 winners already this season, has given him two runs in British colours so far. The results have been modest: a fifth and a sixth, with a seventh sandwiched in between. He has not troubled the judge once.

What O'Meara has pointed out, though, is that French-trained horses often need time to find their feet in Britain. The racing culture is different, the tracks are different, and horses that looked polished abroad can look ordinary until the penny finally drops. Misunderstood raced just yesterday, so he is clearly being kept active — the team is not hiding him away. Whether that patient, race-by-race approach eventually unlocks the horse that once impressed in France remains to be seen, but with a trainer firing at the rate O'Meara currently is, the horse is at least in the right hands to find out.