The Busy Fool

The trouble is, the job has not been going quite so well lately. The recent form reads 3-10-10-10-7-1 — and you have to read that list backwards to find anything encouraging. That sole win came at Naas back in November 2024, now 17 months ago, and since then the horse has finished third once and trailed in mid-pack three times. The numbers do not lie: something has not been clicking. Whether that is form, conditions, or simply the level of competition stepping up is hard to say, but a short break of 35 days since the last run at least suggests the team at Tinahely have given the horse a moment to reset rather than just kept running it through the problem.

That yard, run by P J Rothwell in Co Wicklow, has sent out 35 winners this season — a busy, productive operation that clearly knows how to place horses to their best advantage. The Busy Fool's first win came at Thurles in October 2023, and the peak so far arrived at Naas fourteen months later. Naas is a track that suits horses with a bit of class, so winning there is not nothing.

Regular jockey Tiernan Power Roche has been in the saddle for 6 of the horse's 11 races and has one win to show from that partnership — that is 1 in 6, or around 17%, which sits a touch below what the horse has achieved overall. It is not a damning statistic, but it does hint that the partnership has not yet found its best together. The question now, after the short break and with that 17-month winning drought stretching longer by the week, is whether The Busy Fool can rediscover the form that made it so hard to beat in the first place. The consistency is still there on paper. The wins need to follow.