Westport

Boughey, who runs one of Britain's most prolific yards — it has sent out 99 winners already this season — clearly sees something in Westport worth developing. The trainer has said his work at home has always been solid and that he's got the pedigree to back it up, but also made a telling comment: the horse is still weak, and they haven't pushed him hard yet in training. That matters. It means Westport likely hasn't shown his ceiling. Boughey suggested he could get faster simply by racing more, which is a polite way of saying there's untapped ability there.

His debut win at Lingfield Park on 25 March was a good start — winning first time out is no small thing — and the pattern since has been encouraging: wins at Lingfield and Hamilton Park sandwiched around some lower placings. The recent form reads 1-1-1-19-5-9 going backwards through time, which on its face looks patchy, but viewed the other way — a ninth, then fifth, then nineteenth before three consecutive wins — suggests he's on an upward curve. With a trainer of Boughey's calibre behind him and what sounds like room to improve, Westport is a horse worth watching once he returns to the track.