My Gaffer

What makes My Gaffer's recent form genuinely exciting is the shape of it. Reading the last six races from most recent backwards — win, fourth, win, seventh, eighth, tenth — you can see a horse that went through a rough patch and came out the other side swinging. Those two wins from the last six races represent a 33% win rate over that stretch, comfortably above the career average, and the most recent of them came at Killarney just this week. That is not a horse running out of steam.

The trainer behind all of this is John Patrick Ryan, based at Templemore in County Tipperary. His yard has sent out 21 winners already this season, which tells you this is not a small operation finding the odd lucky result — they know what they are doing and they are doing it consistently. The man most often in the saddle is Danny Mullins, who has partnered My Gaffer 10 times and won twice together, a 1-in-5 win rate that mirrors the horse's overall record almost perfectly. That kind of consistency between horse and jockey tends to mean they understand each other.

Two things stand out as real calling cards for My Gaffer. The first is wet ground. On soft or muddy going, the record reads 2 wins from 6 races — a win rate of 33%, meaningfully better than the career average. When the rain comes down in Ireland, My Gaffer improves. The second is Clonmel racecourse, where the record is a remarkable 2 wins from just 3 visits. Winning two-thirds of your races at any track is the sort of number that makes trainers circle it on the calendar. A horse that wins 1 in 5 overall but 2 in 3 at one specific venue is not running better by chance — something about that track suits it down to the ground. With a first career win dating back to September 2022 at Listowel and a winner's enclosure visit as recent as this week, My Gaffer is very much a horse still writing its story.