Influential

What keeps the profile interesting is who is doing the training. Roger Varian's yard in Newmarket is one of the most productive operations in British racing, and this season alone the stable has sent out 86 winners — a remarkable output that puts them among the elite in the country. When a yard is firing at that rate, the horses that haven't found the winner's enclosure yet are often the ones being carefully placed and developed rather than written off. Influential is very much a work in progress.

The horse has run three times at its usual level — Class 5, which sits near the bottom of the British racing pyramid — and has not won any of them. That said, last racing just one day ago, Influential is clearly fit and active, and its most recent run brought a second-place finish, the best result of its career so far. A step in the right direction, even if the line came a fraction too soon.