L'Amiral Fromentin

The recent form tells a similar story. Over the last six races, L'Amiral Fromentin has twice finished third and once second, but has also faded well back on a couple of occasions. It is the kind of form that keeps the yard — the trainer — hopeful without offering any guarantees. Jockey Dylan Robinson has been the regular partner, riding the horse in five of its races together, but the pair are yet to get off the mark as a combination.

What gives the horse's situation some genuine interest is where it is trained. P J Rothwell's yard in Tinahely, County Wicklow has sent out 35 winners already this season — that is a stable in serious form, producing results at a strong clip. When a trainer is firing in winners at that rate, you pay attention to their horses even when the individual record is modest. The stable clearly knows how to get a horse ready to win, which means L'Amiral Fromentin's moment may simply not have arrived yet rather than being out of reach entirely.

The horse raced just yesterday and is clearly being kept active, which suggests the team believes there is a race to be won somewhere in the near future. At five, it is not getting any younger, but nor is it over the hill — plenty of horses find their level and their confidence at this age. For now, L'Amiral Fromentin is one of racing's nearly horses: close enough to be interesting, still waiting for everything to click.