Saint Polo

The breakthrough came on 16 June at Stratford-on-Avon with its first career victory, but the real momentum has built only recently. Saint Polo races for trainer Jennie Candlish at Basford in Staffordshire, a yard that has sent out 64 winners already this season and clearly knows how to get horses in form. The worrying note in the record is that Saint Polo has never won in a Class 4 race — one of the top grades it has run in — and has failed to manage a victory in four attempts at that level. It tends to perform better at lower-class tracks where the opposition is weaker. Most unusually, the horse has never won when ridden by Ian Power, its most frequent jockey: eight races together have brought eight defeats, suggesting either the horse runs better for someone else or the partnership has simply not clicked. With Saint Polo in the middle of a winning run, expect it to keep racing while the form lasts.