Dear stewards, we need your help. When a horse disappoints, can you please make sure to ask why?

A reader writes with concerns about the way a horse ran recently. Game As A Pebble (not the beast's real name, before you look it up) is one of those reliable sorts who nearly always runs well, even if there are a lot more 2s than 1s in the form figures. Each-way backers appeared to be getting involved as soon as the market opened.

But on the morning of raceday, Game As A Pebble drifted like the proverbial Kon-Tiki, starting at three times the price from the night before. Clearly in trouble at halfway, the horse was pulled up.

While he had no bet on the race, said reader is annoyed about the lack of official curiosity in such cases; sometimes a question is asked, but usually not. He reckons this was an example of that old story, a jumps horse being in desperate need of its reappearance run, connections sending it to the track with no expectation other than it should end up a bit closer to fitness.