Ed Dunlop

The partnership with jockey Hector Crouch is the engine room of the stable right now. Across 40 rides together they have combined for 5 wins — again, around 1 in every 8, or 12% — and when a trainer and jockey keep coming back to each other at that kind of frequency, it usually means there is a shared understanding of how the horses need to be ridden. Crouch clearly suits the Dunlop style, and that consistency matters more than people outside racing often realise. A jockey who knows a yard's horses can find an extra length that a stranger on board simply wouldn't.

The most intriguing individual relationship in Dunlop's recent record is with Bearish, where the two have teamed up three times and taken one win. A 1-from-3 record might look modest, but with a horse you run only sporadically, getting that timing right once in three attempts is exactly what good training looks like. It suggests Dunlop is patient with this one — not over-racing it, but waiting for conditions and opportunities to align.

Four years in and 247 winners banked, Dunlop is clearly past the stage of building a reputation and into the stage of cementing one. The current season's figures — 39 winners, 345 runners, ticking along at 11% — suggest a yard operating at a solid, sustainable level. The next chapter will be defined by whether those numbers start to climb as the stable strengthens, and whether partnerships like the one with Crouch begin to deliver on the bigger occasions.