Pertemps

The partnership with Sean Bowen is the most telling detail here. Bowen is one of the most sought-after jockeys in the sport, and he has ridden Pertemps five times without managing to get it over the line. That is not necessarily a knock on horse or rider — some horses are simply very good at finishing second — but it does tell you that the combination has not yet clicked in the way everyone at Olly Murphy's yard in Wilmcote would like.

Murphy himself is having a productive season, sending out 144 winners, which is a serious number and marks him out as one of the more active and successful trainers around right now. That makes Pertemps something of an outlier in the stable — a horse that competes mostly at Class 4 level, which is a solid mid-tier contest rather than anything exceptional, and has yet to win any of its three races at that grade. You would expect a yard firing on all cylinders to have found a spot for this horse to break through by now, and the fact it hasn't is genuinely curious. Whether that is down to bad luck, a horse that needs a very specific set of circumstances, or simply one that finds a way to get beaten, remains to be seen. The short break might just be the reset it needs.