Pierre Grosse

The three-year-old has run five times without winning, finishing in the top three on three of those occasions. That sequence of results — 4th, 3rd, 6th, 3rd, 2nd reading from oldest to most recent — tells an interesting story. After a dip in form in the middle of his career so far, he has bounced back sharply, placing in his last two races and finishing second just yesterday. Horses that keep knocking on the door like this tend to be the ones that eventually kick it down.

The key detail here comes from his trainer, Jessica Harrington, one of Ireland's most respected handlers, operating out of her yard at Moone in Co Kildare. She has sent out 54 winners already this season — that's not a yard guessing; that's a yard firing. When her team says something about a horse, it tends to be worth listening to. And what she says about Pierre Grosse is that his third-place finish on his most recent return at Leopardstown came in what she described as a strong race, and that he ran a cracker to achieve it. More importantly, she believes his real distance — the trip that will unlock his best — is a mile and a half, which he hasn't yet tackled. In horse racing terms, that's a significant statement. It means the races he's been running so far may essentially have been too short for him, and that he's been doing well despite that, not because of it.

A horse that places consistently without winning can sometimes be frustrating to follow. But Pierre Grosse is three years old, clearly improving, trained by someone with a sharp eye for when to step a horse up in distance, and raced just yesterday — meaning his campaign is very much ongoing. The win hasn't come yet, but the ingredients are assembling themselves rather neatly.