Dacres Cross

That one win came at Carlisle in August 2025, and it remains the high point of the career so far. Carlisle is a left-handed, undulating track in Cumbria that sorts out horses fairly quickly — it rewards those who travel well through a race rather than those who simply sprint for home. Winning there as a three-year-old, even in a Class 4 race (solid, competitive racing without being at the top level), suggests there is something genuine lurking in Dacres Cross when conditions suit.

The recent form is harder to spin positively. The last six runs read 5-4-11-6-7-17, which tells a story of a horse that has been competitive on occasion — a fourth and a fifth in there — but has also had some rough days at the office, including a seventeenth that will have left the stable wondering what went wrong. None of those six runs have produced a win, and that drought now stretches back almost a full year since that Carlisle success.

The yard behind Dacres Cross is Kevin Ryan's operation at Hambleton in North Yorkshire, which is one of the sharper addresses in northern racing. Ryan's team has sent out 45 winners already this season, which means the infrastructure and the know-how are certainly there. A horse trained by Ryan is not lacking for expertise. Whether Dacres Cross can repay that faith with a second win — particularly at the Class 4 level where it has won 1 from 4 races, a rate of 1 in 4, which is actually respectable — may come down to finding the right race at the right time. Having raced as recently as yesterday, clearly the team still believe there is a race to be won.