Plushy

The saving grace here is who is doing the training. Gavin Cromwell, based at Navan in County Meath, has sent out 96 winners already this season — that is a yard in seriously productive form. When a trainer is firing in winners at that kind of volume, it tells you the whole operation is humming: the horses are fit, the planning is sharp, and the team knows how to place a horse in a race it can win. The question with Plushy is whether Cromwell can find the right opportunity to unlock what the horse is capable of, because the talent clearly has not translated into a result yet.

At three years old, Plushy is still relatively young and has time on its side. Some horses take longer than others to mature or to find their ideal conditions, and 13 races is not an enormous sample for a young horse still learning its trade. Racing again just yesterday, Plushy is clearly being kept busy, which suggests the team believes there is something worth pursuing. Whether a first win is around the corner is hard to say — but in a yard producing winners at Cromwell's current rate, stranger things have happened.