Spring Sprinter

The recent form makes for uncomfortable reading: 6, 7, 12, and another 6 tells a story of a horse that competes without threatening, drifting towards the rear of the field as often as it sits in mid-pack. The run of twelfth is particularly eye-catching for the wrong reasons — that kind of finish suggests a day where things went badly from the off.

What keeps the story from being entirely bleak is who is doing the training. Andrew Slattery's yard in Thurles, Co Tipperary has sent out 62 winners already this season, which is a serious output — that kind of volume puts them firmly in the conversation as one of the more productive operations in Irish racing right now. A trainer firing out winners at that rate clearly knows how to find races that suit their horses, and Spring Sprinter, still only three, presumably has time on its side. Whether the form turns around remains to be seen, but with an active yard behind it and youth in its favour, it would be premature to write this one off entirely.