Rokuni

The yard is trained by Charlie Wallis, operating out of Ardleigh in Essex, a small operation that has quietly sent out 7 winners this season — so it is not as though the stable has gone cold. The most regular jockey partnership is with Christian Howarth, who has ridden Rokuni 7 times without getting the horse into the winner's enclosure once. That is not necessarily a damning statistic on its own — horses with a win rate this low are always going to test a jockey's patience — but it does suggest the combination has not yet cracked the code.

Where Rokuni at least shows a flicker of competence is over the shorter distances, between 5 furlongs and 6 and a half furlongs. That 1 win from 11 races at those trips is admittedly still modest, but it represents the entire wins column, so the horse clearly needs pace on its side rather than a stamina test. Similarly, Class 5 — the level just above the very bottom rung of British racing — is where Rokuni has done its best work, going 1 from 11 at that level. These are not high-profile races, but they are the right races for a horse at this stage of its career.

Having raced just yesterday, Rokuni is clearly still very much in training and being given plenty of opportunities. The Brighton win will live long in the memory for the team, even if the horse has spent the 22 months since reminding everyone how hard it is to repeat. At 4 years old there is still time, but the recent sequence of double-digit finishes suggests the priority right now is finding conditions that bring out the best in a horse that has shown, once at least, that it can get its head in front.