Nottodaybobo

The recent form figures — a third, a seventh, a blank, a ninth, another seventh, and a third — paint a picture of a horse that occasionally finds something to run for but rarely threatens to win outright. That third place twice suggests Nottodaybobo is not completely out of its depth, but getting from "placed" to "first" has proved a step too far. At the level where it has spent most of its time, it has been tried four times and come up empty on every occasion.

Trainer Micky Hammond is no stranger to getting horses to run their races — his yard in Middleham, North Yorkshire has sent out 24 winners already this season, which shows there is plenty of life in the operation. The puzzle is simply that Nottodaybobo has not been one of those winners, and at eight years old, the window for that to change is not getting any wider. The horse raced just yesterday, so it is at least fit and active — Hammond clearly has not given up on finding the right opportunity.

What keeps things marginally interesting is that Nottodaybobo has placed six times from 16 races, meaning it has finished in the frame — close enough to matter — more than a third of the time. That is not the record of a horse that simply plods around at the back. It competes. It just very rarely wins. Sometimes a horse like this finds one race that fits perfectly and reminds everyone why it keeps getting entered. Nottodaybobo's name suggests the team knew exactly what they were dealing with from the start — and on the evidence so far, the horse has been admirably faithful to the brief.