Kawaboomga

That win came under the care of W P Mullins, which tells you something in itself. Mullins, based in Co Carlow, is one of the most powerful yards in Irish racing — 237 winners in a single season is a staggering number, roughly equivalent to finding a winner every day and a half across the whole campaign. When a horse from that operation wins first time out and is then given a long, careful break, it usually means the team has plans for it rather than burning it out on the track.

Two races is too small a sample to call anything a pattern, but a 50% win rate — one from two — puts Kawaboomga in rarefied company on paper. The question now is simply whether the horse comes back in the same form after such a lengthy absence. That 14-month gap is impossible to read from the outside, but given where it is trained, patience here is likely deliberate rather than accidental.