Raffles Nobu

Recent form offers a little encouragement without exactly setting the pulse racing. In its last six races, Raffles Nobu has posted a third, a fourth, a sixth, and another third — with two gaps in between suggesting the odd absence from the track. Racing just yesterday, it is clearly still in active work and the team at Lambourn have not given up on finding the right opportunity. The two thirds are worth noting: finishing third is not the same as being beaten out of sight, and on the right day, with the right conditions, that gap between placed and winning can close quickly.

Nick Scholfield trains Raffles Nobu from his Lambourn base, and this season the yard has sent out 19 winners — which shows there is clearly ability within the string and that Scholfield knows how to get horses ready to win. The fact that Raffles Nobu competes at Class 4 level — essentially the bread-and-butter tier of British racing, several steps below the top races — and has still not won in five attempts at that level tells you this is a horse searching for its level rather than one being held back from anything grander. Sometimes a horse finds its moment late; sometimes it becomes one that places often enough to stay in training without ever quite delivering the result everyone is hoping for. Raffles Nobu is very much at that crossroads.