Dreoilin

Those back-to-back second-place finishes are genuinely encouraging after a rough patch that saw Dreoilin finish eighth and ninth in consecutive races. Plenty of young horses go through a phase where things simply do not come together, and for a while it looked like Dreoilin was deep in one of those spells. Two placings in a row, though, shows the horse is running consistently and getting competitive — the next step is turning one of those near-misses into an actual win.

Dreoilin is trained by J S Bolger at Coolcullen in County Carlow, one of the most respected yards in Irish racing. Bolger has sent out seven winners already this season, so the operation clearly knows how to get a horse to the track in winning form. The question is when, not if, Dreoilin gets the right opportunity to go one better than those two recent second-place finishes. With the horse having raced as recently as yesterday and clearly in an active campaign, that opportunity may not be far away.