Tropical Image

What makes the recent form genuinely interesting is the shape of it. Reading the last six runs from most recent backwards — second, sixth, seventh, a blank, sixth, then that win — you can see a horse that found its peak moment and has since been chased back down the field. The second place in the most recent run, just one day ago, suggests Tropical Image is still in decent enough form to be threatening, even if the winner's enclosure has proved elusive since Listowel.

The partnership with jockey G B Noonan tells its own quiet story. Six races together, zero wins. That is not necessarily a damning verdict on either horse or rider — plenty of near-misses can stack up without a result — but it does mean the one moment of glory came without Noonan in the saddle. Trainer Eoin Christopher McCarthy, based in Athea, Co. Limerick, has had a productive season with 15 winners sent out from the yard, so the operation clearly knows how to get horses winning. Getting Tropical Image back to the winner's enclosure, though, remains the puzzle McCarthy's team has yet to solve a second time.

At nine years old, Tropical Image is not a young horse with a big future being mapped out. This is a seasoned campaigner for whom each run is its own story, and the career now has at least one genuinely good chapter in it. The Listowel win, eight months ago now, is the headline — a track in County Kerry famous for its late-season festival atmosphere, the kind of place where a result feels earned. Whether there is another win in Tropical Image remains to be seen, but with a second place on the board just yesterday, the horse is at least still in the conversation.