Solness

What makes Solness even more interesting is how he wins. The team's own words after his most recent victory sum it up well: he jumps brilliantly, he sets a punishing pace from the front, and then when rivals come to challenge him at the last fence, he simply refuses to be passed. Jockey Sam Ewing spoke about getting a breather into him between the third-last and second-last fence — a tiny tactical detail that, in a tight race, was probably the difference between winning and losing. That kind of racing intelligence, in both horse and rider, is what separates the good ones.

He is at his absolute best when the ground is wet and heavy underfoot. On soft or muddy ground, Solness has won 5 of his 9 races — that is a win rate of 56%, or more than one in every two starts. For context, his overall career win rate is 33%, or roughly one in three. The wet stuff genuinely transforms him. O'Brien's yard has been in exceptional form this season — 154 winners already — and Solness represents one of its more intriguing decisions heading into spring. As of a stable tour in February, the trainer was weighing up a trip to Aintree over Cheltenham, partly because a horse called Majborough had beaten Solness in an aggressive front-running battle that seemed to take the wind out of him. Sometimes avoiding the wrong rival is just as important as finding the right race.

His regular partner J J Slevin has ridden him to 4 of those 8 career wins from 13 races together, but the most recent Leopardstown victory came with Sam Ewing in the saddle — and O'Brien's comment that he felt sorry for Slevin while praising Ewing suggests there may be an interesting subplot developing there. Solness raced just yesterday and remains very much in training. Whatever comes next, a trip back to Leopardstown seems the obvious move for a horse who has made that track his own.