First Legion

The raw numbers tell a more complicated story, though. First Legion has won just 1 from 7 races — roughly 1 in every 7 outings — and has not won since that York success nearly a year ago. The recent form reads 6-3-8-7-10-2 from last to first, which is patchy at best: a placed effort here, a handful of disappointing finishes there. When stepped up into Class 1 company — the very top tier of racing — the horse has come up short all three times, with no wins from those three attempts.

What keeps First Legion interesting is who is doing the training. Richard Hannon's yard at Herridge in Wiltshire has sent out 115 winners this season alone, which tells you everything about the scale and quality of the operation. When a yard is firing at that rate, they tend to know when a horse has another big day in it — and the fact that First Legion is still active, having raced just one day ago, suggests the team has not given up on finding it.

The question now is whether that York win was a glimpse of genuine talent or a peak that has proved hard to revisit. A horse who can win a top race at one of Britain's finest tracks clearly has ability. Whether First Legion can string together the kind of consistency to make that ability count regularly is the thing worth watching.