Toyotomi

There is one genuinely encouraging detail in this otherwise modest picture: the yard behind Toyotomi. David O'Meara trains out of Upper Helmsley in North Yorkshire and has sent out 107 winners already this season — that is the output of a trainer operating at serious volume and high quality. O'Meara is not a man who runs horses for the sake of it, which means Toyotomi keeps getting entered for a reason. Horses from a stable this productive tend to be placed in races where the yard believe they have a genuine shot, so the fact that Toyotomi raced just yesterday and remains in active training suggests the team still see potential waiting to be unlocked.

Whether that potential ever surfaces is the open question. Six races without troubling the judge is a thin return, and the clock is ticking for a 5-year-old that has not yet shown what it can do. But in a yard firing at this rate, it would be unwise to write Toyotomi off entirely just yet.