El Fontenaro

The recent form offers a few crumbs of encouragement, at least. Back-to-back second-place finishes in its most recent two races suggest the horse is running consistently and finding its level, even if that level keeps landing it just short of the winner's enclosure. Before those placings, the form dropped away — an eleventh, a fourth, a sixth, and a seventh — so this latest purple patch of close finishes is genuinely the best it has looked in a while. With a race as recently as yesterday, it is clearly fit and in a busy spell of work.

Jockey Ronan Whelan has been the regular partner, teaming up with El Fontenaro nine times without a win between them. That is not necessarily a criticism of either horse or rider — some combinations simply never find the moment — but nine attempts is a meaningful sample, and the scorecard reads zero. Trainer Jarlath P Fahey operates out of Monasterevin in County Kildare and has sent out three winners from his yard this season, so the operation is capable of producing results. The puzzle is that El Fontenaro has not been one of them.

What you are watching with this horse is a competitor that keeps turning up, keeps running respectable races, and keeps finishing just behind the horses that matter. Those two recent second places are the most interesting thing in the file — they show a horse that is engaged and competitive right now. Whether that translates into a win is the open question that nineteen races have not yet answered.