Thaloria

Wayne Lordan has been the regular pilot, and the partnership shows some promise: the jockey has ridden Thaloria five times and won once, giving him a 20 percent win rate in the saddle — better than the horse's overall record. That suggests the combination can work, even if finding winners has been hard work. Trainer Natalia Lupini, based at Banbridge in County Down, has had a solid season with 17 winners sent out from her yard, so she has form with getting horses to the line. The question now is whether Thaloria can rediscover whatever worked at Dundalk and put together a run of form rather than the scattered placings that currently define its record. At four years old, the horse is still young enough to turn things around, but the eight-month gap since that only win is the kind of statistic that tests a trainer's patience.