Finnians Row

The really interesting number is what happens when you look at Downpatrick specifically. Three wins from 9 races at the same course is not a coincidence — that's a 33% win rate at a track where most horses win far less often. For context, winning 1 in every 3 races anywhere is the kind of figure that would make a trainer's best horses look ordinary. At Downpatrick, Finnians Row is simply at home in a way it isn't elsewhere, and McLoughlin's team clearly know it. The horse's first career win came there in September 2023, and its most recent win — just this week, on 13 June 2026 — came there too.

Ground conditions seem to matter as well. On normal ground, Finnians Row has won 4 from 10 races, a 40% win rate that is genuinely striking. That's winning 2 in every 5 races under the right conditions, which puts it in a completely different league to its overall career figures. When the ground is good and the track is Downpatrick, this horse is a different animal altogether.

Recent form backs all of this up rather than contradicting it. Two wins from the last 6 races is a purple patch by anyone's measure, and the sequence of 1-1 at the top of those figures — two wins on the bounce — suggests a horse in form rather than one running on memory. Jockey Patrick M O'Brien, who has been in the saddle for 12 of Finnians Row's races, has won twice together with the horse, roughly 1 in every 6 rides — a partnership that has clearly found its rhythm.

McLoughlin has had 10 winners from his yard already this season, so this is a trainer in decent form himself. Finnians Row is a ten-year-old with 41 races on the clock, which in human terms would be well past middle age — but based on this week's result, nobody appears to have told the horse that.