Dance Time

What makes Dance Time interesting, though, is that she is not without talent in the right spot. She holds a particular love affair with Southwell, where she has won 3 of her 8 races there—a win rate of 37.5 per cent that marks her out as a genuine course specialist. She also thrives on normal ground conditions, winning 6 of 19 races on such surfaces, roughly one in every three attempts. At longer distances of two miles or more, she steps up to win 29 per cent of the time. String those preferences together and there should be races tailor-made for her.

The question now is whether trainer David Loughnane, based at Stoke Heath in Shropshire, can find the button again. His yard has been firing this season with 39 winners, so the support structure is there. When Loughnane assessed Dance Time at his stable tour in late May 2024, he offered an intriguing hint: he described her as "very well-handicapped off 67" and suggested he expected "some fun" with her in time. He noted she had developed into a substantial animal, adding serious bulk since her juvenile years, which had confounded expectations given how well she had performed as a younger horse. Her attitude, he said, remained excellent. For a horse in a cold streak, that kind of training insight is encouraging—and it suggests her the yard have not given up on finding races where she can win again.