Nora Barnacle

What makes this more striking is that Nora Barnacle is not being thrown into competitive company. Five of her nine races have come at Class 6, the lowest tier of British racing, and she has drawn a blank in every one of them. At that level, you are typically racing against horses with modest records and limited ability, so the inability to get competitive even there suggests she has not yet found her best form — or perhaps that this is simply her level.

She is trained by Dominic Ffrench Davis at Lambourn in Berkshire, a yard that clearly knows how to get horses winning — they have sent out 12 winners already this season. She raced just yesterday, so the yard are clearly keeping her busy and giving her every chance to find something. Sometimes horses take time to click, and at four years old there is still room for improvement. But on the evidence so far, she needs to find quite a bit of it.