Flicker Of Hope

Trained by Mark Fahey out of Cloneygath in Co Kildare, this horse is part of a yard that clearly knows what it is doing — 24 winners already sent out this season tells you Fahey runs a busy, productive operation rather than one that stumbles into the winner's enclosure by accident. The partnership with jockey Aidan Kelly is worth noting too: in 9 races together, Kelly has steered Flicker Of Hope to 3 wins, a win rate of 33%, or roughly 1 in every 3 rides. That kind of consistency between horse and jockey usually means they have worked out how to get the best from each other.

The career arc is interesting. A first win came at Clonmel in May 2024, and since then the horse has kept finding the winner's enclosure — most recently at Naas just three months ago in January 2026. Look at the last six runs and you can see a horse that dipped out of form, then sharpened back up sharply: two wins in the middle of that sequence, sandwiched between some quieter efforts. That kind of pattern — coming right when it matters — is exactly what you want to see. It raced just one day ago, which means this is a horse currently in the thick of a campaign, not one being kept warm for some distant target.

Flicker Of Hope is not a young horse finding its feet — at seven, it knows exactly what racing involves. The fact that it is still winning races and still being kept busy suggests the team around it see no reason to slow down. When a horse this experienced wins 2 of its last 6 races, that is a horse in form, not one fading quietly into the background.