Bobbarelli

What Bobbarelli does do is hang around the action. Four place finishes from seven races means it has been in the thick of things more often than not — it is not a horse that trails in last and embarrasses everyone. Those three seconds in the last six runs suggest a horse that competes honestly and gets close, just not close enough. For the people who follow it, that is both the appeal and the frustration.

In the saddle most often is Miss Amber Jackson-Fennell, who has partnered Bobbarelli in five of its seven races without a win to show for it. The pair know each other well by now, even if victory has stayed just out of reach. Behind the scenes, the yard of Nigel and Willy Twiston-Davies at Naunton in Gloucestershire is one that clearly knows what it is doing — 62 winners sent out this season is a seriously productive operation. When a stable of that calibre keeps running a horse, it is worth paying attention, because they are not in the habit of wasting their time.

Bobbarelli may never win a race. At nine years old, with seven attempts on the board and nothing to show in terms of wins, the window is not getting wider. But it raced yesterday, it places regularly, and it lives in a yard full of winners. Sometimes a horse's story is not about the moment it finally wins — it is about the quiet persistence of everyone involved in getting it to the track and giving it the chance.