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COWARDOFTHECOUNTY came into this with a big reputation, having beaten Little Big Bear’s younger brother, Whistlejacket, on debut at the Curragh.

He couldn’t back that form up when finishing seventh in the Coventry (Tuesday 15:05), but his length and three-quarter defeat has left me thinking we didn’t see the best of him, writes Page Fuller.

He was very slow away taking 2.95 seconds to reach 20mph, the slowest of the field. This slow start meant that by the end of the first furlong he was 0.51 seconds, or three lengths, behind the eventual winner Rashbar based on the Longines tracking data. He was also 1.14 seconds, six and a half lengths, behind the leader at this point.

He never found life easy from that point and was one of the first horses off the bridle, but stayed on strongly to the line with an FSP of 100.5%.

He will have learnt a lot from this experience, and considering how much ground he gave away at the start, and how outpaced he was within the race, we could still see a top class prospect when stepping him up in trip