Femme Magnifique

In her last 6 races, she has won twice, finished second once, and third once — only two runs outside the placings in that entire sequence. For a horse who spent a long stretch of her career finding ways not to win, that kind of consistency is genuinely striking. She won for the first time back in December 2023 at Thurles, so it took a while to get off the mark, but she has clearly found her groove since. Most recently, she won at Killarney just this week, which means she goes into whatever comes next on the back of a victory and in the form of her life.

The conditions matter a great deal with this horse. On normal ground, she has won 2 of her 7 races — just under 1 in 3 — which is a strong conversion rate and suggests she is a different animal when the ground suits. Distance is just as important: over 1 mile 6 furlongs to 2 miles, she has won 2 of just 5 races, meaning she wins at 40% in her best trip range. That is a remarkable number. Find her the right ground and the right trip and she becomes a genuine winning threat.

She is trained by David Harry Kelly out of Rathvin in County Tipperary, a yard that has sent out 13 winners already this season — a healthy total that suggests a stable in good form. Her most regular jockey is Cian Quirke, who has partnered her seven times without a win together, which is an odd footnote given how well she has been going. It raises the kind of quiet question that racing regulars love to debate — whether the recent wins have come with someone else in the saddle. Either way, at 8 years old and racing as well as she ever has, Femme Magnifique is worth keeping a close eye on.