Fifty Nifty

The first victory came at Great Yarmouth in April 2024, and by all accounts it caught even the trainer off guard. Tom Clover, who was training the horse at the time, admitted it was "a slight surprise" — Fifty Nifty had been working well at home but hadn't been expected to go and win as convincingly as it did. That kind of debut win, where the horse does more than anyone anticipated, is often the moment a yard thinks it might have something worth following. Sure enough, just a few months later in August 2024, Fifty Nifty went to Newmarket and won the Newmarket July Course Class 2 — one of the better races in Britain. Winning at that level, at one of the sport's most famous venues, is a genuine achievement.

Since then, though, the form has dried up. Fifty Nifty hasn't won in its last six races, and the recent figures — finishing fifth, eighth, seventh, fourth, fifth, and sixth — paint a picture of a horse that's struggling to recapture its best. The most recent outing at Newmarket was particularly concerning; Martin Dunne, who now trains the horse, noted it was running with its head in the air, which usually means something isn't quite right physically or mentally. Dunne's view is that the horse simply had a bad experience on the day, and the plan is to give it a couple of weeks in the paddock to reset.

Whether Fifty Nifty can find its way back is the open question. The clues that it can are there: on fast, dry ground it has won 2 from 5 races — a 40% win rate that is genuinely impressive — and at distances around a mile to a mile and a quarter, it has shown real ability. Dunne's yard has sent out 20 winners already this season, so the operation is clearly in good form. The horse raced just yesterday and remains active. For now, Fifty Nifty is a horse with a high-water mark it's struggling to get back to — but the team clearly believe that mark was no fluke.