Head Girl

The most recent form reads 9-3-9-7-6-11, which tells you about as mixed a tale as you can get. That third-place finish stands out as a genuine bright spot — a moment that showed something was there — but it has been sandwiched between results that range from modest to poor. The 11 is particularly rough, and the fact that she raced just one day ago means she is right in the thick of a busy campaign, with the yard clearly keen to find the race that suits her.

What works in Head Girl's favour is who is doing the searching. Jonathan Portman's yard at Upper Lambourn has sent out 46 winners already this season — that's the kind of output that tells you a trainer knows exactly what he's doing and when to run a horse. Portman isn't a handler who fires horses into races without a plan. When a yard is operating at that level, you can be reasonably confident that even a horse without a win to its name is being placed with purpose, not just kept busy. Upper Lambourn is one of the great training centres in British racing, and horses based there tend to be well-prepared and well-targeted.

The honest truth is that Head Girl has not found the right opportunity yet. Three years old is still young, and plenty of horses take time to click. One placing from six races isn't a glowing CV, but it's not a closed book either — and with a trainer in form sending her out regularly, the next chapter could read very differently.