Luan

The career numbers are solid rather than spectacular: 2 wins and 2 places from 7 races, which works out at winning roughly 1 in every 3.5 races overall. But the recent form is what really catches the eye. After a run of results that included a ninth and a thirteenth, Luan has turned a corner sharply, winning at Newcastle on 26 June and following it up with another win at Wolverhampton just this week on 14 July. Back-to-back wins in the space of 18 days is the kind of form that suggests a horse who has found its stride and figured things out.

What makes that momentum slightly curious is that Luan has actually failed to win any of its 3 races at the Class 5 level — the everyday, bread-and-butter tier of racing — going 0 from 3 at that grade. Yet the wins have arrived anyway, which tells you the horse can deliver when it matters even if the record at that level looks blank on paper. Sometimes horses are just inconsistent; other times they need the right conditions or a slightly different setup to click. Right now, something is clearly clicking.

Behind the scenes, Luan is trained by James Ferguson out of Newmarket in Suffolk — one of the great centres of British racing, where the best yards in the country are based. Ferguson's operation has sent out 22 winners already this season, which is a healthy total and signals a yard in good form. A trainer running hot and a horse running hot at the same time is usually a combination worth paying attention to.