Captain James Cook

That said, context matters here. The horse is trained by A P O'Brien out of Cashel in County Tipperary, one of the most formidable operations in world racing. The yard has sent out 125 winners already this season — a number that reflects a machine-like consistency at the very top of the sport. O'Brien regularly fields large strings of young horses, and plenty of them take time to find their feet before suddenly clicking into gear. Finishing seventh and twelfth as a two-year-old in an O'Brien yard is not necessarily a disaster; it may simply mean the horse is learning.

What's worth watching is how recent this all is — Captain James Cook raced just one day ago, so the yard are clearly keeping him busy and giving him experience. Whether that experience starts translating into results soon will tell us a great deal about whether there's a decent horse hiding underneath these early numbers.