Elman

The dashes in the recent form — marked as non-completions — add another layer of concern, and with a race just yesterday, Elman is being kept busy. Sometimes that reflects a yard trying different angles to find something that clicks; sometimes it simply reflects a horse that needs time to find its feet. At this stage, there is no evidence yet of which it is.

What works in Elman's favour is the calibre of the team around it. Trainer Denis Gerard Hogan, based in Cloughjordan in County Tipperary, has sent out 54 winners already this season — that is the output of a yard that knows how to get horses winning. Hogan is not a handler who struggles to find the right opportunity for his horses, which makes Elman something of a puzzle. When a competent, high-volume yard cannot get a horse on the board across 12 attempts, it tends to mean the horse itself has some finding to do. But it also means that if a solution exists, this is a yard with enough experience to eventually find it.

For now, Elman is one of racing's works in progress — unbeaten in the sense that nobody has ever seen the best of it, and winless in the sense that matters on a racecard. The next run will be worth watching, if only to see whether the penny finally drops.