Daly Boy

His recent form string of 5-5-–-5-2-3 tells an interesting story. The gap in the middle suggests a break at some point, and the two most encouraging efforts are those placed finishes — a third and a second — which show he can get competitive when things fall right. The cluster of fifth-place finishes, though, suggests he often finds himself a little short when the race gets serious in the final stages.

Daly Boy has done most of his racing at Class 4 level, which sits in the middle of the British racing ladder — not the very bottom, but not the big occasions either. He has run four times at that level without winning, which raises a fair question about whether a drop into softer company might finally unlock that elusive first victory.

He is trained by the partnership of Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero, based at Oldcastle in Cheshire. The yard is in strong form this season, having sent out 42 winners — so the training operation clearly knows how to get horses to win races. If anything, that makes Daly Boy something of an outlier in the yard, a horse that has so far resisted whatever they have tried. He raced just yesterday, so he is very much in active campaign, and the team clearly believe there is a win in him somewhere. Whether he can finally deliver it is the question his next run will have to answer.