Adaay Of Scarlett

The horse has raced 6 times in the last month or so and has placed in five of them, which means it is consistently running into the placings. Most recently it finished fifth, which was the first time outside the top two in that run, but before that came four consecutive second-place finishes. That kind of consistency — finishing second again and again — tells you the horse is running in competitive races and holding its form, even if it cannot quite find the winner's circle at the moment. It is the racing equivalent of a musician who plays well every night but hasn't quite had the song that lets them break through.

The two wins came early and were meaningful ones: first at Newmarket on 14 April, then at Ascot on 1 May. Ascot is one of the top racecourses in Britain, so winning there matters. What makes the recent form interesting is not the wins themselves — those are now four months behind — but the fact that the horse is still mixing with the right sort of company and still earning places. A two-year-old in this position, running regularly and hitting the board most times out, is exactly the kind of horse trainers like to see keep progressing. Trainer H Palmer, based at Malpas in Cheshire, has saddled 67 winners this season alone, so the yard knows how to develop horses. Adaay Of Scarlett raced just yesterday, which means it is sharp and active. The next step would be another win to break the recent drought, but the form underneath suggests that is not far away.