Karthon

The recent form — 4th, 5th, 2nd, 6th, 2nd, 3rd reading back from today — tells its own story. Those two second-place finishes and a third are encouraging, but the 5th and 6th show the inconsistency that's keeping Karthon stuck in the "nearly" column. Raced just yesterday and therefore as active as it gets, this is a horse in the thick of its season right now, and the question of whether it can convert one of those placings into a victory is very much open.

Karthon competes at Class 5, which is the entry-level tier of British racing — the kind of races where the aim is to find a race the horse can actually win, rather than testing it against the elite. And yet, zero wins from five attempts at that level. That's a frustrating record, because Class 5 is precisely where a horse like this should be finding its moment. The trainer, Emma Lavelle, operates out of Ogbourne Maizey in Wiltshire and has had 44 winners this season, so this is clearly a yard that knows how to get horses winning. The fact that Karthon hasn't managed it yet, despite being placed repeatedly, is perhaps the most intriguing thing about it — the talent to be thereabouts is clearly there, but something keeps going slightly wrong in the closing stages.

Whether that changes soon is the interesting question. Karthon isn't a lost cause — horses that place consistently do sometimes click and start winning once the right race or the right conditions come along. But right now, it remains one of those horses that makes you think "this might be the day" and then makes you think that again next time.