Inishfallen

What's striking is how long Inishfallen has been chasing that second win without success. Thirty-eight months is a long drought, especially for a horse still competing at age five. In its last six races, the results have been unforgiving: a fourth place, then seventh, second, eleventh, tenth, and sixth. There are flashes of promise — that second place suggests the horse can still get competitive — but consistency has proven elusive. Sean Levey, the jockey who has ridden Inishfallen most often, has won once from nine races together, a rate of roughly 1 in 9. That's slightly better than the horse's overall record, which hints that the partnership works, but not enough to turn things around.

Inishfallen races primarily at distances between five and six and a half furlongs, distances that suit sprinters and horses built for sharp, explosive racing. On paper, though, even at those distances the record is thin: just one win from 17 races at that trip. When stepped up to the very top level — Class 1 races — the horse has managed nothing from five attempts. The trainer, Stephen Thorne, runs a yard in Rush, County Dublin, that has sent out 24 winners this season, so there is real talent in the operation. But Inishfallen appears to be at the struggling end of the string, a horse that gives its all but simply lacks the class to win regularly at the tracks where it competes. Raced just a day ago, it remains active and still searching for win number two.