Portman Blue

The early placings — back-to-back third-place finishes — were encouraging signs that Portman Blue could be competitive, even without troubling the winner. But the more recent runs, finishing sixth and eighth, suggest something hasn't clicked yet. It could be confidence, it could be finding the right race, or it could simply be that improvement is still coming. At four years old, this horse is still relatively young and has time on its side.

Joseph Parr's Newmarket operation has sent out six winners already this season, so the yard clearly knows how to get horses to win races. Newmarket is one of the most important training centres in Britain, home to some of the sport's biggest names, and Parr's horses have been in decent form. The question for Portman Blue is whether the right opportunity will come along to convert those near-misses into a first victory. Raced just yesterday, this is a horse very much in the thick of its season — and with six races of experience now banked, the yard will be hoping that elusive breakthrough isn't far away.