Skellig Isle

What makes her story a little more textured is the journey to that Nottingham win. Her trainer Philip McBride, based at Newmarket, recalled that she was a complete handful on her debut at Sandown — his words were "a bucking bronco" — before settling and running a promising fourth at Kempton. That early promise was clearly there, and the Nottingham win followed soon after. The problem is that she has been trying to repeat the trick ever since and has so far come up short every time, including seven attempts at Class 5 level — the most accessible grade of racing in Britain — without adding to her tally.

McBride's yard has sent out 12 winners this season, so the operation around her is clearly in decent form. She raced as recently as yesterday, which tells you she is fit and active and that the team still believes there is a race to be won somewhere. Whether she can find that elusive second win is the question. At 6% career win rate, with two placed finishes from 17 races, she is the kind of horse who keeps turning up and keeps giving her the yard reasons to try again — a fourth place here, a fifth there — without quite delivering the result they are after. Racing has plenty of horses like that, and they tend to inspire a particular kind of stubborn, affectionate optimism in the people who run them.