Pluto Star

Hanmer runs a busy yard out of Tattenhall in Cheshire and has already sent out 19 winners this season, so he knows what a horse with potential looks like. His read on Pluto Star is an optimistic one. After the horse's debut back in February, he came home with a respiratory infection — a scoped dirty result, in racing terms — which explains a lot about that first run and the time he's had off since. Asking a horse to perform when it's fighting off something like that is like asking someone to run a race with a chest cold. You wouldn't expect much, and you shouldn't read too much into the result.

The encouraging part is what Hanmer says is happening at home. Pluto Star is back in full work and apparently showing enough on the gallops to keep the team excited. There was talk of heading to Aintree — one of the most famous tracks in the world — but the thinking now is to find somewhere quieter first, let him get a win on the board, and build from there. A race at Bangor looks the likely next step, which suggests the yard wants conditions where confidence can grow rather than reputations can be made. That's a sensible, patient approach for a horse who hasn't yet had a fair crack.

He's raced just twice, finished tenth and eighth, and has never troubled the judge. But given what was going on behind the scenes after that debut, those numbers tell you almost nothing useful. The real test is still to come, and if Hanmer's judgement is