Fingal's Hill

The numbers that stand out most are the ones tied to specific places and partnerships. At Newcastle, Fingal's Hill has won 3 times from 7 races, which works out at roughly 1 in every 2 visits to that track. That kind of course record isn't luck — it suggests the horse knows the place, or more precisely, that its particular way of racing suits the track well. And on normal ground conditions, it has won 4 of just 6 races, a 67% win rate that tells you this horse is almost a different animal when conditions are in its favour.

Then there is the partnership with jockey Thomas Dowson. Four wins from five races together — that is an 80% win rate, which borders on the extraordinary. Most successful jockey-horse combinations in racing operate somewhere around 25 to 35%. Whatever Dowson understands about how to ride this horse, it borders on telepathic.

The recent form makes compelling reading too. Two wins from the last six races, including a Class 2 victory at Aintree in May 2025 — Aintree being one of the most famous racecourses in Britain — and a win at Hexham in June 2025. The yard itself is in good nick, having sent out 5 winners already this season, and Fingal's Hill raced just one day ago, meaning it is very much in the thick of things right now.

At ten years old, some horses are winding down. Fingal's Hill appears to be doing the opposite — winning top-level races, thriving with a jockey who clearly gets the best out of it, and still travelling to big tracks to compete. That is a story worth paying attention to.