The Moonlight Man

The most recent run did offer a small flicker of encouragement. A third-place finish is the best result on his recent record, though it has been surrounded by a string of blanks that tell their own story. At Class 4 level — the bread-and-butter tier of British racing, a step or two below the top events — he has run four times without winning. That is precisely the level where a horse of his experience ought to be competitive, which makes the barren run harder to explain away.

He is trained by Joe Tickle, based at Stoodleigh in Devon, a yard that has sent out 20 winners this season — so this is not a case of a struggling operation sending out hopeless horses. Tickle's yard clearly knows how to get horses to win. That makes The Moonlight Man something of a puzzle: a horse in capable hands, at a level he should be able to handle, who simply has not managed to get his nose in front in nine attempts. Whether yesterday's run showed the beginnings of a turn in form, or was just another near-miss, is the question worth watching. Sometimes horses like this click into place when least expected. The Moonlight Man still has time to prove that the story is not yet finished.