Spirit Of Eagles

The two wins bookend a three-year stretch of honest, consistent effort. The first came at Down Royal in July 2023, and the second — more recently — at Fairyhouse in May 2026, just seven weeks ago. That Fairyhouse win is worth noting: Spirit Of Eagles is still active, still racing, and the trainer Thomas Dowling, based at Baltinglass in Co Wicklow, is clearly keeping the horse fresh and competitive. The yard has sent out one winner this season, and Spirit Of Eagles provided it.

The horse clearly has a preference for normal ground — those two wins have both come when conditions were standard, and across 19 races on that surface, Spirit Of Eagles has won 2 of them, a rate of around 1 in every 9.5 on preferred ground. That's meaningfully better than the overall career average and suggests ground conditions genuinely matter here. Wet or very dry tracks have been a different story.

Jockey Gavin Ryan has built a useful partnership with the horse, winning 1 of their 7 races together — about 1 in every 7 rides, which is comfortably above the horse's overall average. That combination is worth keeping an eye on. The recent form figures of 6-8-3-1-3 before a less encouraging eleventh last time out suggest Spirit Of Eagles can still find the frame on the right day, even if the last run was a reminder that nothing is guaranteed. With 46 races in the book and a win as recently as seven weeks ago, this is a horse in the middle of a long, workmanlike career — not flashy, but quietly refusing to give up.