Dagger Strike

That win came in a Class 5 race — the bread-and-butter level of British racing, where horses are finding their feet and working out where they fit in — and it is at that level where Dagger Strike has done its best work, winning once from five attempts there, a 20% win rate. The recent form, however, tells a more complicated story. In the last six races, the horse has not won, posting three consecutive runner-up finishes before a couple of blanker efforts. Three second-place finishes in a row sounds like consistency, and in one sense it is, but it also raises the obvious question: what does it take to get this horse's head in front again?

Hollie Doyle, one of the most recognisable jockeys in the sport, has partnered Dagger Strike most regularly — seven times in all — and has that one win to show for it, a win rate of roughly one in every seven rides together. Trainer Archie Watson, whose Upper Lambourn yard has sent out 62 winners already this season, clearly knows how to get horses performing, and the sheer volume of winners his team produces suggests this is a well-run operation. The question is whether they can find the right opportunity to get Dagger Strike back to the winner's enclosure.

Racing just yesterday, this horse is very much in active campaigning mode. At three years old there is still plenty of time for the picture to develop. The profile right now is of a horse that competes honestly and places often enough to suggest ability, but which needs to rediscover whatever it found at Newcastle on a cold December night if it is going to turn those near-misses into wins.