Celtic Moon

Six weeks on, that opening win remains the highlight. Recent form has been mixed: a ninth place, then a seventh, followed by a first-place finish, and most recently a fourth. Those results tell you that Celtic Moon can perform well on its day — that first-place run showed it is still capable of running up front — but consistency has been elusive across these last four races. The ninth and seventh are the sort of results that happen to young horses still finding their feet, while the fourth suggests improvement and a return to form. At 25 wins per 100 races (1 win and 1 placed finish from 4 outings), the horse is still very much a work in progress, though not without ability.

The horse is trained by J P Murtagh at Coolaghknock Glebe in County Kildare, a yard firing on all cylinders this season with 53 winners already to its name. That sort of win rate suggests Murtagh knows how to get horses to the track ready to run, and Celtic Moon should be in good hands. The horse raced just 1 day ago, so it is clearly being kept active and given plenty of opportunities — a sign that the trainer sees something worth developing. At 2 years old and still learning, Celtic Moon's future is very much unwritten. The Bellewstown win proved it can win; now it needs to string together better runs and show that victory was no flash in the pan.