Dunnington Lad

Across 36 races in total, Dunnington Lad has won 5 times and placed on a further 7 occasions — a win rate of around 1 in every 7 races, or 14%. That is a modest return on the face of it, but the detail worth paying attention to is how he performs on normal ground conditions. On a standard surface, he has won 3 of his 10 races, which is 30% — wins nearly 1 in every 3. That is a completely different horse from the one who struggles in softer conditions. Ground clearly matters enormously here.

He is trained by P Winks at a small yard in Worsbrough, South Yorkshire, and most often ridden by Ethan Jones, who has partnered him in 5 of his races and won once together — a 20% win rate that makes Jones by some distance his most effective pilot. The yard has sent out just one winner this season, which tells you this is not a powerhouse operation. Dunnington Lad is doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

The concern right now is straightforward: he has not won in his last 6 races, and his recent form figures of 3-7-6-11-9 show a horse that has drifted away from the places he was hitting earlier in his career. His last win came at Ripon in August 2024 — nearly two years ago now. He raced just yesterday, so he is clearly being kept busy, but the results have not been there. At the level he typically competes — the lowest tier of British racing — even modest horses can put together a win if the stars align. For Dunnington Lad, those stars have historically aligned at Ripon. Whether another trip there can rekindle things is the question his team will be asking.