Peregrine Falcon

The recent form reads 5-3-2-6-3-3, which means in five of its last six outings, Peregrine Falcon has finished in the top three. A second place in there, a couple of thirds — this is a horse that regularly beats most of the field and loses to one. Anyone who has backed it will know that particular feeling well. The one blip, that sixth-place finish sandwiched in the sequence, only makes the consistency around it more noticeable.

Most of those races have come at Class 5 level, which is the bread-and-butter end of British racing — competitive fields, modest prize money, horses all trying to find their moment. Peregrine Falcon has run eight times at that level and not won once. The question the trainer Patrick Morris and his yard at Prescott will be asking is whether a small tweak — a different trip, a different track, a different day — might finally unlock what the form clearly suggests is in there.

Regular partner Billy Loughnane has been in the saddle for five of those races together with no wins to show for it, though that's hardly a damning verdict on either horse or rider given how competitive the finishes have been. Morris has had a productive season with 22 winners from his Merseyside yard, so the infrastructure is clearly working — Peregrine Falcon is just the one that hasn't quite clicked yet.

With a race just yesterday, this is very much a horse in the thick of its campaign. Sooner or later, a horse that finishes second and third as reliably as this one does tends to find its moment. Whether Peregrine Falcon is about to become a winner or will keep collecting places indefinitely is the question that makes watching it genuinely compelling.