County Champs

The answer is somewhere in between. Look at the recent form and there is actually something to work with. In the last six races, County Champs has finished second three times, including back-to-back runner-up spots in its two most recent outings before the current break. That is not the form of a hopeless case — it is the form of a horse that competes, finds a level, and then just cannot quite get its nose in front. Whether that changes is the real question.

Philip Byrnes has ridden County Champs five times and is yet to get a win out of the partnership. Five rides together with no return is a familiar frustration in racing — sometimes the chemistry is just not quite there, and sometimes the horse simply has not found the right opportunity. The two finishing second together at least suggests the pair are not miles off.

The yard behind the horse is that of Brian M McMahon, based in Scarriff, Co Galway. McMahon has sent out four winners this season, which tells you this is a stable that does land races when the right horse is in the right spot. Four wins from a small yard is respectable, useful work — these are not people making up the numbers. Whether County Champs can become winner number five is the question coming back from a break of roughly three months.

That absence is worth watching. A three-month layoff can mean all sorts of things — a minor setback, a deliberate freshening up, waiting for the right race. Horses that return from a rest having shown the kind of consistent placed form County Champs has can occasionally find that extra gear. It has never won, but it has rarely been far away either. Sometimes that is just how a racing career goes. Sometimes, eventually, one of those second places becomes a first.