Wholelotofbusiness

What's encouraging heading into its comeback is the form those wins and places have come in. Look at the last six runs and you see a horse that has been placed in five of them: second, first, second, second, third. That's a level of consistency that plenty of horses never manage. The sole blip is a fourth-place finish, which in the context of everything else looks like a minor blip rather than a warning sign.

The partnership with jockey G B Noonan is worth noting. Together they've won 1 from 6 races — about 1 in every 6 times they've lined up — and that winning ride at Killarney was part of that combination. Trainers and jockeys who click often share an understanding of how a horse wants to be ridden, and there's reason to think Noonan knows what makes this one tick.

Trainer Eoin Christopher McCarthy operates out of Athea in County Limerick and has been in good form this season, sending out 15 winners. That's a yard running at a healthy clip, and a horse returning from a break — Wholelotofbusiness hasn't raced in roughly four months — from a yard in form is a very different proposition to one coming back from a quiet or struggling stable.

The four-month absence is the one genuine question mark. That's long enough to require a fitness assessment from anyone watching in the paddock before the race. But the profile here is of a horse that is consistent, placed more often than not, trained by someone in confident form, and ridden by a jockey who has already shared its finest hour. Six-year-olds with this kind of reliable profile don't tend to fade — they tend to find another day like Killarney.