Boyfriend

What makes Boyfriend genuinely interesting is his partnership with jockey Pat Dobbs. When the two have teamed up, they have won 3 of 9 races together (33%), a winning rate more than half again better than Boyfriend's overall record. That kind of consistency between horse and rider does not happen by accident; it suggests genuine rapport and understanding. Dobbs seems to know how to get the best out of him. Boyfriend is trained by Richard Hannon at Herridge in Wiltshire, a yard in excellent form this season with 118 winners already sent out. His recent form tells the story of a hard-knocking horse — second, third, first, eighth, sixth, fifth — the kind of up-and-down pattern you see in horses who run regularly at their ceiling and occasionally rise to the occasion. He first won on 22 September 2023 at Newbury, and nearly three years on, he is still finding his way to the winner's enclosure. Not flashy, not spectacular, but the sort of horse that gives a yard and a rider steady business and the occasional reward.