Miss Lia

What Miss Lia does do, consistently, is finish close. Her recent run of form shows three second-place finishes in her last six races, which tells you she is competitive and showing up fit and ready — she just keeps finding one too good on the day. There's a particular kind of frustration in a horse that finishes second repeatedly; it means the ability is clearly there, but something — a sharper rival, a bad moment in running, the racing gods in a mischievous mood — keeps getting in the way of the winner's enclosure.

She races with Tiernan Power Roche in the saddle more often than anyone else, and together they've managed 1 win from 10 races — a 10% win rate, which is meaningfully better than her overall career average. That suggests the partnership has unlocked something, even if wins have still been hard to come by. Behind the scenes, she's trained by P J Rothwell out of Tinahely in County Wicklow, a yard that has sent out 35 winners already this season — so this is clearly a competent operation that knows how to get horses ready. Miss Lia raced just yesterday, which means she's very much in active campaign mode right now.

The Tramore win in August 2024 remains the one shining moment on her record, and with 22 months gone since then, the question is whether she can find her way back to the winner's enclosure before her story moves on. She's not a horse that embarrasses herself — far from it — but at six years old, with one win to her name and a habit of finishing just behind the leader, every race feels like a test of whether the pieces will finally fall into place.