Ballykinlar

What makes that drought all the more frustrating is the company he keeps. His trainer Mickey Bowen, based at Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, has been in brilliant form this season with 47 winners on the board — one of those yards where things are clearly clicking. And when Ballykinlar teams up with jockey Eoin Staples, the results have been remarkable: three wins from five races together, which works out at 60%. That's an extraordinary hit rate with one particular rider, and suggests there's a real understanding between horse and jockey when everything lines up.

The horse clearly has a preference for normal ground — two wins from four races on decent footing, a 50% win rate that stands well above his overall average. He's not one who needs soft, heavy going to perform; he just wants a fair surface beneath him. His first career win came at Kilbeggan in July 2025, with the most recent at Sligo the following month. Neither are the grandest tracks in Ireland, but winning is winning, and the team clearly knew they had something worth nurturing. There's a telling detail from a post-race comment after Sligo: an earlier trainer noted that Ballykinlar probably should have won a race as a five-year-old, only to fall three fences from home with the race there to be taken — small margins that can shape a career.

Perhaps the most intriguing chapter came when current trainer Mickey Bowen took him to Cheltenham's Martin Pipe race having had the horse for only eight or nine weeks. He hadn't been right for months before that, wasn't fully fit, and was really just there to give his owner a day at the Festival. He finished 11th of 22, which sounds modest until you consider the circumstances — Bowen described it as "pretty unbelievable." Now Punchestown is the next target, and with Staples likely in the saddle and the right ground underfoot, Ballykinlar has the profile of a horse who could easily end that eight-month wait at any moment.