He burst onto the scene as a two-year-old, winning at Wolverhampton in March 2022, and his then-trainer Dave Loughnane was effusive afterwards. Loughnane described him as a horse who had always found work easy — they had expected winning to come naturally, almost as a formality. He followed that up with another win at Kempton Park just a few months later in June 2022. Two wins before his third birthday, a trainer raving about his potential. It looked like the start of something.
It wasn't. Since that Kempton win, Dayman has gone 29 races without returning to the winner's enclosure. To put that in perspective, he has been racing for over four years and has not won once since he was two. His recent run of form — finishing seventh, eleventh, sixth, seventh, second, and fourth — tells the story of a horse who occasionally gets competitive but cannot quite find that extra gear when it matters. Liam Keniry, who has ridden him seven times, is still waiting for his first win aboard the horse.
Dominic Ffrench Davis, who trains him out of Lambourn, picked Dayman up after he failed to sell at auction at Newmarket — a promising horse nobody wanted to pay for. Ffrench Davis spoke warmly about him, calling him a lovely, well-mannered horse who does nothing wrong at home. For a spell the yard was using him as a lead horse to teach the younger horses their job, which says something about his temperament even if it did not help his racing career. The trainer believed a break from that role, combined with races on the all-weather surface over winter, could spark a revival.
That optimism was expressed back in September 2023. Dayman raced just yesterday, so he is still very much active and the Ffrench Davis yard — which has sent out 12 winners this season — has not given up on him. At Class 4 level, the tier just below the top races in Britain, he has won 1 race from 10 attempts, roughly one in every ten. He is a horse that flatters to deceive, but at seven, with a trainer who clearly likes him, perhaps one more win is not entirely out of the question.
| Course | Races | Results | Last run | Win rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wolverhampton Galloping |
9 | 1 win, 1 second, 7 other | 14 Jul | 11.1% |
| Lingfield Park Sharp |
8 | 2 thirds, 6 other | 27 Apr | 0% |
| Kempton Park Galloping |
7 | 1 win, 1 third, 5 other | 19 Jan | 14.3% |
| Newbury Galloping |
2 | 2 other | 11 Jul | 0% |
| Brighton Undulating |
1 | 1 other | 30 Apr | 0% |
| York Galloping |
1 | 1 other | 11 May | 0% |
| chelmsford | 1 | 1 other | 1 Dec | 0% |
| Goodwood Undulating |
1 | 1 other | 3 May | 0% |
| Chepstow Galloping |
1 | 1 other | 21 May | 0% |