Merapi

Michael Keady's Newmarket operation is having a solid season with 16 winners to its name, so the trainer clearly knows how to get horses over the line. With Merapi, though, the winning formula has not yet been found. The horse runs regularly at Class 5 level, the lower tiers of competitive racing, but has managed only those five places from six attempts at that grade. Darragh Keenan, who has been the regular rider, has also drawn a blank across five races together. In the horse's last six outings, Merapi showed some consistency—three second-place finishes and a fourth, which suggests it runs in the mix but consistently lacks that extra gear when it matters. This is a horse that keeps turning up, keeps finishing in the frame just often enough to stay interesting to its the yard, but has not yet found the race or the conditions where everything clicks into place.