Trackman

The recent form makes for grim reading. In the last six races, Trackman's finishes read 7-7-6-5-6-5 — working backwards from the earliest, or 5-6-5-6-7-7 coming into today. No top-four finish, no sniff of a podium. The horse raced just one day ago and is very much still in training, still trying, still coming up short.

The class of racing matters here. Class 6 is the entry level — the bottom rung of British racing, where horses compete who have struggled to win at higher levels or are simply finding their feet. Trackman has run 19 of its 25 races at this level and has not won a single one of them. That is not a horse waiting to find its best form at the right level. That is a horse that has been given every opportunity to succeed in the easiest available races, and has not taken it.

Regular jockey Tyler Heard has been aboard for seven of those races together, and the pair are yet to trouble the winner's enclosure. Simon Pearce's yard has sent out five winners this season, so the trainer is clearly capable of getting horses to the line first — Trackman just hasn't been one of them.

Five places from 25 races tells you the horse is not completely without ability. It has been competitive enough to finish in the frame, competitive enough to keep the yard interested. But at six years old, with a record like this and form pointing in the wrong direction, patience is the one resource that may be running low faster than anything else.