Granite Bay

The most eye-catching number in Granite Bay's profile is what happens on normal ground: two wins from just four races, a 50% record that any trainer would be delighted with. That is the kind of stat that tells you conditions genuinely matter here. When the ground is neither too soft nor too firm, this horse turns up. The frustration is that those ideal conditions haven't produced a win since Listowel in September 2024 — now nearly 19 months ago — despite Granite Bay racing regularly enough since then.

The recent form tells a clear story: four runs into the places, two fourth-place finishes mixed in, but nothing to the winner's enclosure in six races. That isn't a disaster — horses finishing second twice in your last six runs are clearly competitive — but there is a sense of a horse that keeps knocking on the door without quite opening it. Jarlath P Fahey's yard in Monasterevin, Co. Kildare has sent out three winners already this season, so the team is in decent enough form, and they clearly believe Granite Bay still has a win in it somewhere, given it raced just yesterday.

The partnership with Ronan Whelan is worth highlighting. He has ridden the horse in 11 of its 14 races, and all three wins have come with him in the saddle — a win rate of 27%, or roughly 1 in every 4 rides together. That is a meaningful number. When a jockey knows a horse that well, and the horse keeps running into the frame, the question stops being whether it can win again and starts being when the right race arrives. On the right ground, with Whelan aboard, Granite Bay has already shown it can get to the front. The next step is doing it again.