Stay On Tab

What gives reason for quiet optimism is who is doing the training. Iain Jardine runs a busy and productive yard out of Carrutherstown in Dumfries and Galloway, and 57 winners already sent out this season is a serious number — it marks this as a stable that knows how to get horses performing. When a yard of that calibre persists with a young horse, it usually means they see something in it that the racecourse results haven't fully shown yet. Stay On Tab raced just yesterday, so this is a horse very much in the thick of its season.

At two, it is genuinely too early to draw firm conclusions. Some horses take half a dozen races just to understand what is being asked of them. The trajectory — from 6th on debut down to 3rd and back — is a little uneven, but that third place is a marker. The next few months will be telling.