Fingle Bridge

The headline result so far is a Class 1 victory at Exeter in February 2025 — that means one of the top races in Britain, the kind of occasion most racehorses never get near. Murphy was delighted but already looking further ahead, saying he thought Fingle Bridge would be even better suited to Aintree and was keen to get him another run before taking on one of the big races there. That ambition is not unfounded. The horse has won 5 from 12 overall, but on wet or muddy ground specifically, the record reads 2 wins from 3 races — a 67% win rate. Murphy has made no secret of the fact that soft ground and a big, galloping track bring out the best in him, and that stepping up to two and a half miles has unlocked genuine improvement.

There is one pairing that really stands out. When jockey Sean Bowen is in the saddle, Fingle Bridge has won 4 of their 6 races together — that is a remarkable two-thirds of the time. That kind of record between horse and rider is not a coincidence; it suggests Bowen understands exactly how to get the best from him. That said, Bowen has been candid about the horse's jumping, noting after a race at Uttoxeter that Fingle Bridge can be unpredictable over the fences — sometimes he pops over cleanly, other times he guesses wrong. Bowen called him brave, which in racing terms is a polite way of saying he sometimes gets away with things he really shouldn't.

Uttoxeter is worth flagging as a happy hunting ground: 2 wins from 3 races there, including a victory as recently as December 2024. Murphy's longer-term ambitions include a crack at the Grade 1 Scilly Isles Novices' Chase, one of the most prestigious races of its kind in the calendar. For a horse that only started his career in December 2022, the trajectory here is genuinely steep — and it looks like it has further to go.