Mr Globalist

The recent form makes for honest if sobering reading. In his last six outings the best he has managed is a third place, with a string of fifth-place finishes filling out the rest. He raced just yesterday, so this is a horse very much in the thick of things rather than one coasting through a quiet spell. Peter Kavanagh has been in the saddle for six of those races together and is still waiting for a breakthrough, the pair yet to get off the mark as a partnership.

Mr Globalist tends to line up at Class 5 level, which is the bread-and-butter end of British racing — the kind of races where horses are evenly matched and margins are tight. He has contested nine races at that level without winning, which tells you the competition is competitive enough that even a consistent, experienced horse like this can struggle to find the gap. Trainer Lizzie Quinlan, based at Bolton Mill in Cumbria, has sent out four winners this season, so the yard clearly knows how to get horses to the line first — the formula just has not clicked yet for this one.

What makes Mr Globalist quietly compelling is the sheer persistence of it. Thirty-six races is a long journey, and the yard — the trainer and team around him — clearly believe there is a race to be won somewhere. With a third-place finish already on the board in this recent run of form, he is not far off. Sometimes a horse like this just needs one thing to fall right — the right ground, the right race, the right day. It has not happened yet. But he was racing yesterday, and that says everything about where things stand.