Thornaby Annie

Her recent form makes for interesting reading. In her last six races she has recorded finishes of 7th, 3rd, 4th, 13th, 2nd, and 2nd — reading from oldest to most recent, the direction of travel is clearly upward. Back-to-back runner-up finishes suggest she is hitting a purple patch right now, and with a race just yesterday, she is very much in the thick of her season. The 13th-place finish sitting in the middle of that sequence looks like an off day sandwiched between better efforts, which is not unusual for a young horse still learning the job.

She races mostly at Class 5, which is the bread-and-butter level of British racing — not the glamour end of the sport, but fiercely competitive in its own right. Without a win from three races at that level, she hasn't yet converted her place-hitting into a victory, and that will be the challenge for her trainer Adrian Nicholls and his yard in Sessay, North Yorkshire. Nicholls has sent out 12 winners already this season, so there is clearly a yard in decent form behind her. Getting Thornaby Annie to turn those seconds into a first win looks like the obvious next chapter in her story, and given how she has finished her last two races, it may not be far away.