Ringdufferin

What stands out is the gap between his two wins. He broke through for the first time at Downpatrick in September 2023, when jockey Jack Kennedy rode him to an easy lead in a way that revealed something about how the horse should be ridden — Ringdufferin simply stays galloping, and when nothing challenged him that day, Kennedy never felt the need to fight for position. Just a fortnight later, on 30 September 2023, Ringdufferin won again at Gowran Park. Since then, nothing. Three years have passed without another victory, and while recent form shows a second place just a few weeks ago, the wins feel firmly in the past.

Trained by A L T Moore at Naas, in County Kildare, Ringdufferin remains active and was last seen a day ago. The yard is modest by any measure — only three winners sent out this season — and Ringdufferin's £74,000 in career prize money places him somewhere in the middle ground of racing: too useful to be a complete also-ran, not quite consistent enough to be reliably profitable. At eight years old, he still has racing left in him, but with the wins now so distant and the recent form struggling to place him in the frame, he feels like a horse playing out the tail end of his racing life.