Adalida

Her recent form tells the story of a battler rather than a breakout star. In her last six races she finished fifth, third, fifth, second, first, and second — a pattern of solid mid-field runs punctuated by that one win and a couple of near-misses. She raced just yesterday, so she is active and in work right now. When Marco Ghiani has ridden her — they have shared five races — he has managed to get her home once, a win rate of one in five, which is fractionally better than her overall record but hardly remarkable. Stuart Williams trains her from Newmarket, running a yard that has sent out sixty-seven winners this season, a solid operation that knows how to get the job done.

The puzzle with Adalida is that she performs better at smaller tracks than she does in the higher-class races. At Class 4 level — the upper-middle tier — she has drawn a blank in seven attempts. Her two wins came at Lingfield and Great Yarmouth, both courses that suit her better. She wins roughly one race in every nine she runs, which means most days are about grinding out places and learning how to finish. For a three-year-old still finding her feet, that is not discouraging, but it does suggest she will need to settle in at the right track and distance before she becomes a regular threat in the winner's circle.