Top Gun Tina

She does most of her racing at Class 6, which is the entry level of British racing — the races where horses like Tina belong, and where the competition is most within her reach. Even there, she has won just 1 from 26 races at that level, a rate of 4%. Her best distance range is 7 furlongs to a mile, where that sole career win came, and she has converted 1 from 8 races over those trips — 12% — which is a dramatically better record than anywhere else. The message is reasonably clear: get the trip right, and she at least gives herself a chance.

Trained by David Thompson at Bolam in County Durham, she races for a yard that has sent out 9 winners this season, so the operation clearly knows how to get a horse to win. Sean Kirrane has ridden her seven times without managing to find the winner's enclosure together, which is one of those partnerships that keeps getting another chance without quite delivering the result either side would want. Her recent form — finishing fourth, sixth, fifth, eighth, fifth, and fourth in her last six outings — shows a horse running consistently in the places without threatening to win. She raced just one day ago, so she is very much in the thick of her season right now.

One win from 33 races is a modest return by any measure, but Tina earns her place in the field every time she runs. She is the kind of horse that fills out a race card and finishes where she is supposed to finish — just outside the money more often than not, occasionally nudging into it, and every so often, as Carlisle showed, finding a day when everything clicks.