Listowel

Six races, zero wins, zero places — the record is as bare as it gets, and three consecutive double-figure finishes at Dundalk before a 128-day break do nothing to encourage. This horse has never raced on soft or muddy ground, so today is an unknown quantity, but there is little in the existing form to suggest a breakthrough is coming.

Three consecutive top-three finishes is a proper run of consistent form, and a near-miss second at Leopardstown 46 days ago shows this four-year-old is knocking hard on the door. Both of its career wins have come on the artificial surface at Dundalk, though, and it has no record on soft ground — today's wet conditions at a turf track are uncharted territory.

Ten races, zero wins, and a run of two 11th and 14th-place finishes makes this a hard sell — the odds drifting from 1.1 to 34.0 reflects that reality. Crucially, this horse has never raced on wet or muddy ground before, so today is a genuine unknown, and not in a way that inspires confidence given the recent form.

Miss Gitana has the best record of any horse in the field at today's two-mile trip, winning once from four attempts at the distance, but recent form has been poor with back-to-back finishes of 9th and 16th. The bigger concern is a record of zero wins from four attempts on soft ground — she wins on fast, dry ground, and today is the opposite of that.

The least experienced horse in this field with just eight races, Mystic Rose has yet to win or place in any of them — making it the rawest and most unproven runner in a 14-horse field. A 4th place at Bellewstown offers a small flicker of promise, but a 10th-place finish last time out and limited data overall makes this very difficult to recommend.

Carrying the lowest weight in the field gives Edge Of Darkness a physical advantage, and a record of 1 win from 4 races on soft ground suggests today's conditions are not a problem. What is a problem is the recent form — three consecutive 10th, 10th, and 12th-place finishes — which sits in sharp contrast to the standout marker suggesting three straight top-three finishes, highlighting how misleading that data point appears to be here.

Forty races into its career, Loyal Touch has won five times and shown it can handle soft ground — winning roughly 1 in 4 races on it — which is a positive for today. However, the last three runs have produced finishes of 9th, 10th, and 11th, which is a run of form that is difficult to look past, and the draw in stall 12 puts this horse in a high position where history says winners rarely come from at this course.

The standout marker flags two places in the last three races, but the actual form figures tell a different story — finishes of 14th, 10th, 7th, and 7th across four races, with zero wins and zero place finishes on record. The data here is thin and the evidence points firmly in one direction; at odds of 41.0, the market agrees.

All In Peder has won over this course and distance before, which puts it in a small and select group in this field — but this horse has not raced for 382 days, the longest absence in the field by a wide margin, and the last run was a 14th-place finish. Coming back from over a year off with a new jockey who has never ridden this horse before makes this a major ask, however promising the course and distance form once was.