Sir Les Patterson

The numbers that really stand out, though, are at Dundalk. Two wins from three visits to that track is the kind of record that makes a trainer keep coming back, and with good reason. His most recent win came there just five weeks ago, on 20 February, which tells you this is a horse in good form right now rather than one coasting on past glories. He's had a short break of 37 days since that run — enough to freshen him up without losing the sharpness he clearly had.

Conditions matter enormously with this horse. On normal ground he's won 4 of his 6 races — that's two in every three, which at any level is a remarkable conversion rate. When conditions turn against him, those numbers drop away sharply, so keeping an eye on the weather before he runs is well worth doing. He also seems to have found his ideal trip at seven furlongs to a mile, winning 2 of his 3 races over those distances. That combination — right track, right ground, right distance — is exactly what trainers spend years trying to unlock, and with Sir Les Patterson, it looks like Stephen Thorne has cracked it.

Thorne operates out of Rush in County Dublin and has sent out 24 winners already this season, which tells you this isn't a yard guessing — they know what they're doing and they know when a horse is ready. Sir Les Patterson began his career winning at Southwell in December 2023, and he's been quietly building on that ever since. He typically lines up in Class 3 races — a solid middle tier, not the very top level but genuinely competitive — and has won 1 from 3 at that grade, which is respectable without being dominant. The recent form reads 1-1-4-10-3-3, and those back-to-back wins are the part worth circling. When everything lines up for this horse, he's hard to beat.