Swelltime

What makes this profile a little more complicated is that the horse is now coming back from a break of around six months — 184 days since it last raced — and its recent form before that absence was patchy. The last six runs read 9-10-8-3-1-5, which tells a clear story: a win, a couple of decent efforts, and then a slide into the back half of the field. That kind of trailing-off is not unusual in a nine-year-old, but it does mean the yard — sorry, the team — will be hoping the rest has done the horse good rather than simply aged it.

Trainer W J O'Doherty operates a small yard out of Ballingarry in County Limerick, and the operation has sent out 2 winners this season. It is not a yard that floods racecourses with runners, which means when they do target a race, it tends to be worth paying attention. Swelltime has shown it acts best on normal ground — 3 wins from 13 races in those conditions, or 23%, which is comfortably its best surface record — and prefers a distance of between a mile and six furlongs and two miles, where it has won 2 of its 9 races.

P J O'Hanlon has partnered the horse five times for one win together, a 20% win rate that is actually the best of any jockey who has ridden Swelltime regularly. If this horse is going to announce itself back from its break in style, Killarney on normal ground at a mile and a half-plus, with O'Hanlon in the saddle, is about as close to its ideal conditions as anyone could arrange.