Maccarellu

What gives the horse a genuine fighting chance is where it calls home. Venetia Williams' yard at Kings Caple in Herefordshire has been in fine form this season, sending out 16 winners already — and a trainer running at that kind of volume tends to know exactly when a horse is ready to find the winner's enclosure. Williams is a shrewd operator, and horses from her stable often improve with experience rather than bursting out of the gate from day one. For a horse with only three races under its belt, that context matters.

Maccarellu has no wins to its name yet, but the story is still being written. Horses with this profile — lightly raced, trained by someone who clearly has strings firing — can surprise you once everything clicks. The next run will tell us quite a lot.