Half Track

His recent form tells a similar story. In his last six races he has failed to win any of them, with a couple of fifth and sixth-place finishes his best efforts and two runs where he didn't place at all. He returns now after a short break of 61 days, which can sometimes freshen a horse up — though there is little in his record to suggest a dramatic turnaround is coming.

Most of his racing has come at Class 4 level, which sits in the middle of the British racing ladder — not the top end, but not the bottom either. There he has won just 1 from 13 races, a win rate of around 8%, or roughly 1 in every 13 tries at that level. His regular partner Brian Hughes, one of jump racing's most respected jockeys, has ridden him seven times without a win between them — a combination that has never quite clicked.

He is trained by N W Alexander, a yard based in Leslie, Fife, that has sent out 18 winners this season, so the operation clearly knows how to get horses to win. Whether Half Track can add to that tally is the question. At ten years old, with his form heading in the wrong direction and his last win now a distant memory, the honest answer is that he looks like a horse best enjoyed for turning up rather than for threatening the front of the field.