Inca Heights

What makes the drought harder to stomach is how close the horse has come to finding the winner's circle again. In its last six races, it has turned in two fifth-place finishes and a couple of efforts in double figures, the kind of form that suggests a horse running reasonably well but just missing out on the money. It was out again just yesterday, which shows the team is keeping Inca Heights active and searching for the right opportunity. That matters. A horse can lose form sitting idle, but this one is getting regular racing, which at least keeps the door open.

Clive Cox's Lambourn yard is a serious operation — they have sent out 48 winners already this season — so the horse is in good hands. The question now is whether Inca Heights can rediscover that winning touch, or whether that single victory at Newbury eighteen months ago will turn out to be a high-water mark. The recent form suggests it belongs somewhere in the middle order of races, capable of running respectable races without quite managing to pull off the win. That is not nothing, but it is not the trajectory any horse owner wants to see either.