Hostility

The recent form makes for uncomfortable reading. The last six races have produced a string of fourth and second-place finishes — two seconds followed by four fourths — and Hostility has not won in any of them. There is a cruel consistency to it. Seconds suggest a horse that is close; fourths suggest one that is fading. Seeing both in the same sequence hints at a horse that can threaten briefly but struggles to sustain it when it matters most.

What makes this particularly puzzling is the level at which Hostility is competing. Class 5 is towards the lower end of British racing, the kind of company where a horse with genuine ability should be winning races. Hostility has run seven times at that level and won none of them, which tells you something honest about where it sits in the pecking order. At some point, placing repeatedly without winning stops being encouraging and starts being a statement about the horse's ceiling.

To be fair to O'Meara's yard, this is a stable in excellent form — 102 winners on the board this season is a serious number, and it shows the team knows how to get horses to perform. Hostility raced just yesterday and is clearly fit and active. Perhaps there is a race out there with its name on it. But after 14 attempts, the optimist's case is getting harder to make.