Lasswade

What makes this particularly puzzling for trainer Ed de Giles is that his yard at Ledbury in Herefordshire is clearly capable of producing winners. Nine winners already this season shows a stable in decent form, which makes Lasswade something of an outlier. When a trainer is winning races regularly but one horse in the yard keeps finishing near the back, it raises questions about whether the horse is fully fit, whether it genuinely lacks the ability to compete even at the lowest level, or whether the right race simply hasn't come along yet.

The 53-day break since its last run is worth noting. That is long enough to suggest the team has deliberately stepped back to freshen the horse up rather than keep running it into poor finishes. Whether that breathing space translates into an improved performance remains to be seen. But with 0 wins and 0 places from 12 career races, Lasswade needs to show something — anything — next time out to suggest that better days are genuinely ahead rather than wishful thinking.