Alto Sax

That Dundalk win on 1 April 2026 is the latest chapter in a career that began to find its feet when Alto Sax broke through at Roscommon back in May 2024. Since then, Peter Fahey's yard in Monasterevin, Co. Kildare has kept the horse busy and competitive. Fahey has sent out 14 winners already this season, so this is a trainer who knows how to place a horse to win, and the fact that Alto Sax is still being targeted at races suggests the team believes there is more to come.

The key to unlocking this horse seems to be conditions. On normal ground, Alto Sax has won 2 from 7 races — that is a 29% win rate, which is genuinely sharp. To put that in perspective, nearly 1 in every 3 runs on a sound surface has ended in victory. Shift to different ground and that figure drops away sharply. The lesson is clear: when the ground is right, this horse turns up. Over seven furlongs to a mile, it has won 1 from 6 races, showing it handles that middle-distance trip well enough even if it has not dominated it.

The one relationship that raises an eyebrow is with regular jockey Leigh Roche. The pair have teamed up five times without a win between them — not a disaster, but not what you want to see from a partnership that keeps being tried. The recent form figures of 4-5-1-12-13-7 show a horse that can still hit the frame and produce a big run, but one that is inconsistent enough to keep punters honest. That 1 in the sequence — the Dundalk win — is the reason nobody is giving up on Alto Sax just yet.