Cordouan

Those two wins are worth looking at more closely. The first came at Laytown in September 2022 — Laytown being the famous beach track in County Meath where races are run on the sand itself, one of the most unusual venues in Irish racing. The second arrived at Gowran Park in August 2024, and that is now 21 months ago. Since then, Cordouan has gone six races without a win, and its recent form figures — 9, 25, 8, 8, 16, 9 — suggest it has been struggling to find the front. A 25th-place finish in there is a particularly difficult afternoon's work.

Where it does click is at a distance of seven furlongs to a mile — that middle-distance sweet spot where the race is long enough to reward stamina but short enough to suit a horse with a bit of pace. At that trip, Cordouan has won 2 of its 8 races, a win rate of 25%, or 1 in every 4. That is a dramatically better record than its overall numbers suggest, and it is the kind of detail that separates a punter from a casual observer.

Cordouan is trained by P Sweeney out of Letterkenny in County Donegal — a small yard that has sent out six winners this season, which for a rural operation is a perfectly respectable haul. Cian MacRedmond has been the regular partner, riding in 7 of its races and winning once together, a 14% win rate — better than 1 in every 7 rides. Raced as recently as yesterday, this is still an active campaigner, and at the right distance on the right day, it has shown it can still get the job done.