Poor Relation

The recent form tells an interesting story. That second place looks like the closest it has come, and the pattern of placing without winning is one that trainers and owners know all too well — good enough to be there at the finish, not yet good enough to be first past the post. Whether that changes soon is the big question. Poor Relation raced just yesterday, so it is very much in the middle of its campaign right now.

On the positive side, the horse is in the hands of Ollie Sangster, whose yard in Marlborough has sent out 46 winners already this season — a genuinely impressive tally that marks Sangster out as one of the sharper operations around. A trainer producing winners at that volume clearly knows how to place horses in races they can win, and that gives some cause for optimism that Poor Relation will eventually find the right opportunity. The name might be self-deprecating, but the form suggests a horse that belongs on a racecourse — it just needs one thing to click.