Eighteenth Smiles

What catches the eye is the recent form. After that breakthrough win at Cork just days ago, Eighteenth Smiles has immediately come back to race again, which suggests the team believes it has found something worth building on. Before the victory, the horse had strung together two third-place finishes, showing that it was knocking on the door. The earlier runs included a fifth and another fifth, but these are the kinds of results expected from a developing two-year-old still working out what it is capable of.

Trained by J P O'Brien at Owning Hill in Co Kilkerry, Eighteenth Smiles is in a yard that has already sent out 160 winners this season — a powerhouse operation that knows how to bring young horses through. Being trained by an outfit of that quality, combined with the fact that the horse has now tasted victory, suggests there is genuine potential here. Not every two-year-old wins a race, and those that do often go on to better things. The real measure of Eighteenth Smiles will come in the months ahead, but a fresh win and a keen yard behind it are encouraging signs.