Nopresentliketime

What does matter is who is doing the training. Gordon Elliott's yard at Longwood in County Meath is one of the most powerful operations in jump racing, and this season alone it has sent out 209 winners. To put that in perspective, that is not a yard where horses drift quietly through their careers unnoticed — Elliott and his team are relentlessly focused on placing horses where they can win, and the fact that Nopresentliketime is still active, having raced as recently as 29 days ago, suggests they have not given up on finding the right opportunity.

At six years old, there is still time on the clock. Some horses take longer than others to find their feet, and three races is barely enough to know what you are working with. The second-place finish is the one to hold onto — it means Nopresentliketime has already shown it can compete at the front end of a race. The task now is turning that into a first win, and with one of racing's busiest and most successful yards in your corner, the chances of that happening are better than the bare record might suggest.