Dark Ace

The recent form makes for particularly good reading. In the last six races, Dark Ace has won three, finished second once, and picked up a third — only one run in that sequence could be called disappointing. Winning 3 of your last 6 races means you're landing a trophy every other time you show up, which is a remarkable clip at any level. And the horse is clearly not slowing down: it raced just one day ago and won at Lingfield Park on 3 April 2026, meaning this profile is being written while the horse is essentially still warm from the track.

Adrian McGuinness, who trains Dark Ace from his yard in Lusk, County Dublin, has had a strong season with 39 winners already on the board — so this is a horse operating within a confident, well-organised team at a productive moment. When jockey Adam Caffrey is in the saddle, the results are especially striking: three wins from seven rides together, meaning they click into gear roughly 43% of the time — winning nearly 3 in every 7 races as a partnership. That is the kind of ratio that makes a trainer keep booking the same jockey.

Dundalk is where the story started. Dark Ace landed its first career win there on 30 October 2024, and the track has remained a happy hunting ground — 2 wins from 7 races there, which sounds modest until you consider how many horses go to the same course repeatedly and never win at all. Dundalk is an all-weather venue that rewards horses who handle the surface well, and Dark Ace clearly does. Lingfield Park, the site of this week's win, is another all-weather track, which suggests this horse has a real affinity for that type of ground rather than it being a fluke.

At just four years old and in the form of its life, Dark Ace looks like a horse with more wins still to come.