Insuspense

What makes Insuspense interesting is its recent consistency at the lower levels. Over the last six races, it has finished second, second, second, seventh, fifth, and third. Three seconds in a row is the kind of form that would normally tip a horse toward a breakthrough, but somehow it keeps coming up just short. These are tight finishes — the ones that feel agonising for the trainer and the yard watching from the stands. At Class 5, the level where it typically competes, it has started seven times without winning, a blank record that mirrors its career-wide struggles.

Trainer Ross Burdon, based at Newmarket, has sent out 12 winners this season, so the yard is functioning well overall. That makes Insuspense something of an outlier — a horse the team keeps running and keep believing in, even after 17 attempts without a win. Whether that is faith in its ability to click soon, or simply the reality of racing a horse that is decent but not quite brilliant enough, is hard to say. What is clear is that Insuspense remains a horse that threatens to win most times it runs, but has yet to deliver.