Auburn Avenue

What gives Auburn Avenue real hope is the pattern over the last year and a half. The horse clearly has a distance window that suits it. Between seven furlongs and a mile, it has won 1 of 4 races — a 25 per cent win rate, four times better than its overall record. That's not a coincidence. In those same distances, it has also picked up two more places, suggesting it runs consistently well without always reaching the finish line first. The recent form is mixed: a second-place finish five runs ago sits alongside an eleventh and an eighth in the past month, the kind of inconsistency you see when a horse is searching for its level. But the second-place finish suggests it can still compete with decent fields.

Trained by John and Rhys Flint at Kenfig Hill near Bridgend, Auburn Avenue runs for a yard that has sent out eight winners already this season — solid, working operation rather than a heavyweight stable, but one that knows how to get the best out of modest animals. At five years old, the horse is still young enough to develop, and there is every reason to think another win could be lurking in the next few months, provided the trainers keep it at distances where it has shown genuine form. The next outing will tell whether that Chepstow victory was a stepping stone or merely a pleasant interruption in a long search.