Tasmanian Girl

What makes her story slightly less bleak is what happens when conditions suit. Over distances between a mile and six furlongs and two miles, she has won 1 of her 7 races — a respectable 14 percent win rate in that specific stretch. Her jockey Cian Quirke has had better luck aboard her than most, winning 1 of 6 rides together, a 17 percent rate that hints she may run better for him than the numbers suggest for her overall form. Trainer Declan Queally's yard at Cappagh has enjoyed a decent season with twenty-six winners, so Tasmanian Girl has been part of a functioning operation rather than a struggling one.

The bad news came just yesterday: another race, another failure. Her last six outings have brought a fifth, a sixth, a ninth, and runs that produced an eighth and a fourteenth. She is actively racing still, which means Queally clearly believes there is more to be done — or at least that she remains capable of reaching that 2 percent of her races that end in the winner's enclosure. For a horse this far into her career with such a modest record, the odds of another breakthrough feel long. But she has beaten them once already.