Yasmina

That trainer is Andy Irvine, based in Ashurstwood in East Sussex, which puts him just a short drive from Plumpton. That local knowledge matters more than people realise — trainers who know a track well tend to target it deliberately, and Irvine's yard has already sent out five winners this season, so this is not a quiet operation hoping for the best. They run horses with a purpose.

Yasmina's overall record reads 1 win and 4 places from 9 races — a win rate of 11%, or roughly 1 in every 9 runs. That sounds modest, but the places tell a better story. She has been competitive far more often than she has won, and her recent form over the last six runs — finishing first, fifth, fourth, and third before two slower efforts before that — shows a horse who has been improving steadily. The back-to-back seventh-place finishes earlier in that sequence have given way to much better efforts, with the win at Plumpton the obvious high point.

She has had a 48-day break since that win, which is short enough to suggest she is in good health and the team is happy with her, but long enough to allow a proper freshen-up. Horses often run well returning from a short rest when they have something to build on, and Yasmina has exactly that. The question now is whether Andy Irvine sends her back to Plumpton — where she clearly goes well — or tests her somewhere new. Either way, she arrives at her next race as a horse in form, trained by a yard that is firing, and with recent evidence that she knows how to win.