Mount Ruapehu

The broader picture is a little more complicated. Mount Ruapehu has not won in its last six races, and recent form reads 6-6-6-8-2 — consistently finishing mid-pack or towards the rear. The second place is the one flicker of encouragement in there, but the sixes tell a story of a horse that is competing without quite finding top gear. That said, it raced just yesterday and is clearly still being kept busy, which suggests the yard at Carrutherstown — run by trainer Iain Jardine, who has sent out an impressive 57 winners already this season — still sees a race to be won somewhere.

One thing that genuinely works in this horse's favour is the ground. On normal conditions, Mount Ruapehu has won 5 of its 10 races — that is a 50% win rate, which is extraordinary by any standard. Half the time it races on a good surface, it wins. The challenge is that it has only managed 1 win from the other 39 races in its career, so the combination of the right track and the right ground matters enormously here.

Regular jockey Andrew Slattery has partnered the horse 18 times, winning just once together — roughly 1 in every 18 rides. That is a modest return, and it hints that even with a familiar partner in the saddle, this horse needs everything to fall into place. When it does — when the ground is right, and the track is Southwell — Mount Ruapehu is genuinely hard to beat. Everywhere else, it is an honest competitor that rarely finds the front. The art of placing this horse well is, by now, pretty well understood.