Alfred Tennyson

The recent run of form tells a similar story. Over the last six races, Alfred Tennyson has finished 3rd, 4th, 7th, 2nd, 12th, and 6th — plenty of involvement, no victory. That second-place finish is the tantalising one, the kind of run that keeps the yard — sorry, that keeps a trainer and their team interested. There's clearly ability here, but converting it into wins has proved elusive.

Where the horse does show genuine promise is over seven furlongs to a mile. In seven races at those distances, Alfred Tennyson has won once — the Limerick win — and that works out to a 14% win rate, or roughly 1 win in every 7 races at the trip. That's more than double the overall career average, and it's the kind of stat that points a trainer towards a clear game plan: keep finding races at that distance and trust that the horse's best chance of repeating that Limerick moment lies there.

Denis Gerard Hogan, who trains the horse out of Cloughjordan in County Tipperary, is clearly a man in form — his yard has sent out 54 winners this season alone, which is a serious operation by any standard. That Alfred Tennyson hasn't added to his tally despite being in such a productive yard says something about the level of competition the horse faces, but it also means the training and opportunity are there when the right race comes along. With a race as recently as yesterday, this is a horse very much still in the thick of things — and somewhere out there, a seventh furlong on a decent day at Limerick might just bring out the best in him again.