Mister Sandman

His recent form reads 4-4-3-2-4-5 across his last six races, which tells an interesting story. That second place is encouraging and shows he can compete, but the pattern of fours and fives either side of it suggests consistency at the wrong end of the result. He raced just yesterday, so he is clearly a horse being kept busy and in the routine of racing.

Tom Queally has been in the saddle for five of those 11 races and has yet to find the combination that gets Mister Sandman to the front. At Class 6 — the entry level of British racing, where horses tend to be modest in ability — he has run six times without winning, which is the level where you would genuinely expect him to be competitive if a win is coming at all. That it has not arrived yet at this tier is a mild concern.

The saving grace is the stable behind him. Gary and Josh Moore, based in Lower Beeding in West Sussex, have sent out 99 winners already this season — a genuinely impressive tally that marks them out as a yard that knows how to get horses winning. The fact that a team producing results at that rate has not yet cracked the code with Mister Sandman is curious, but it also means the expertise is there if the horse finds his moment. For now, he remains one of racing's nearly-men — competitive enough to keep turning up, but still waiting for his morning to arrive.