Vinciamo

The recent form makes for interesting reading: the last four runs read 2-6-3-3, which means Vinciamo has finished second or third in three of those four races. That's a horse that is competitive, consistent, and frustratingly close. The one blip — that sixth-place finish — sits in the middle of a sequence that otherwise screams "nearly." For a young horse still learning the job, that kind of consistency is genuinely encouraging.

What works in Vinciamo's favour is the team behind it. Kevin Ryan's yard at Hambleton in North Yorkshire has sent out 45 winners already this season — that's the output of a yard operating at the top of its game, and horses trained there tend to be placed in races they can win. Ryan is not in the habit of running horses for the sake of it. The fact that Vinciamo raced just one day ago suggests this is a horse being kept busy and in good form, with the yard clearly keen to find the right opportunity to get off the mark.

The question, as always with a horse in this position, is whether the win finally comes before the patience runs out. Three placed finishes without a victory can start to define a horse's reputation — but at three years old, with a busy trainer and a string of near-misses rather than poor runs behind it, Vinciamo looks more like a winner waiting to happen than a horse that simply can't get the job done.