Mister Sandman

His last six runs read 2-4-4-3-2-4, which paints a pretty clear picture: he gets involved, he runs his race, and then someone else gets their nose in front at the finish. Two runner-up finishes in that sequence show there are moments where victory looks close, but close is the closest he has come. He raced just yesterday, so this is very much a horse in the middle of his story rather than at the end of it.

Tom Queally has been the man in the saddle more than anyone else, taking five of those rides without a win to show for it. That is not necessarily a reflection on either horse or jockey — sometimes a partnership just needs the right race to click. Queally is an experienced rider and the team at Lower Beeding will know that better than anyone.

That team is Gary and Josh Moore, a father-and-son operation in West Sussex that has been quietly excellent this season — 99 winners sent out is a serious number, the kind that marks out a yard firing on all cylinders. Mister Sandman has spent most of his time competing at Class 6, which is the entry level of British racing, and he has not won any of his six races at that level. For a horse trained by one of the more productive yards in the country, that is a puzzle worth watching. The talent and the environment are clearly there. Whether Mister Sandman can finally put it all together is the question his next run will need to start answering.