Saffron Belle

At five years old, she is not a youngster still finding her feet, which makes the lack of a win or even a placed finish in her last two outings a little harder to explain away. Four races is still a small sample — plenty of horses take time to put it all together — but the recent direction of travel is not encouraging. She ran just yesterday, which means she is a horse very much in the thick of things right now.

She is trained by Sue Gardner, who operates out of Longdown in Devon — not one of the big powerhouse yards you might associate with Newmarket or Lambourn, but a small operation that clearly knows how to get horses ready to win. Eight winners already this season is a respectable return for a yard of that size, and it tells you Gardner is doing something right. Whether Saffron Belle can be the next name added to that tally remains to be seen, but she is in the hands of someone who has demonstrated they can get the job done.