Little Miss P

The one sliver of encouragement is that third-place finish, which counts as a placing and shows she is not simply making up the numbers every time out. But a horse that has run six times and not won is being asked to prove something, and the results so far have not given her the yard — sorry, her trainer — much to shout about. That 14th-place effort in her last race is the kind of performance that raises questions rather than answers them.

She is trained by W McCreery at Rathbride in County Kildare, a yard that has sent out 21 winners this season and clearly knows how to get horses winning. The fact that the yard is in decent form makes Little Miss P's winless record more of a puzzle — the support around her is there, even if the results have not followed yet. At four years old, time is not entirely against her, but the clock is ticking, and racegoers will want to see something more encouraging than a recent 14th before getting too excited about her prospects.