Fleur De Provence

She is trained by Dermot Weld at his Curragh yard in County Kildare, one of Irish racing's most respected operations. The fact that Weld's team has already sent out 33 winners this season tells you this is not a yard that runs horses for the sake of it — when one of their horses lines up, it tends to be competitive. For a first-time runner to come home second in that environment is a reasonable start, and you would expect the team to have learned plenty from that debut that they can put to use next time out.

With only one race to go on, there is not much of a story yet — but that is almost the point. Fleur De Provence is very much a horse at the beginning of something, and the next few runs will tell us a great deal about how high her ceiling might be.