Ma Jacks Hill

That version, they think, will arrive when Ma Jacks Hill starts jumping fences. Trained by Gordon Elliott out of Longwood in County Meath — a yard that has sent out an extraordinary 210 winners already this season, making it one of the most productive stables in Ireland — Ma Jacks Hill has so far been competing over hurdles, the smaller obstacles used earlier in a jumps horse's career. Elliott has said plainly that you won't see the best of him until he faces a fence, and that kind of remark from a trainer of Elliott's calibre is worth taking seriously.

The horse's path to his first win tells its own story. He was disappointing early in his career and underwent a wind operation — a procedure to fix a breathing issue that can quietly rob a horse of its ability to compete — before breaking through at Gowran Park in October 2025. His regular jockey Jack Kennedy, who has ridden him in 5 of his 12 races and won once together with him, described the improvement plainly after that win: the wind operation probably brought it out, and better ground — fast and dry rather than wet or soft — should bring more. Elliott, for his part, called him a gorgeous-looking horse and pointed to his size and galloping style as assets that will suit the bigger, more demanding fences of chasing.

His most recent win came at Punchestown just four weeks ago, and with a race logged just yesterday, he is clearly in active training and being kept busy. His last six results — a win, a second, a third, and three finishes further back — suggest a horse with the ability to be competitive when conditions suit, but one still finding its level. The intriguing part is that everyone around him seems to agree those conditions haven't truly arrived yet. When Ma Jacks Hill eventually goes chasing, this hurdles career may look like little more than a warm-up act.