Fighting Fit

The horse's best days, though, are looking further back in the rear-view mirror. The most recent win came at Listowel in September 2023 — that is now 31 months ago — and the last six races have produced nothing better than a fifth-place finish, with a string of blanks before that. The current form line of fifth, tenth, fifth, eighth makes for fairly grim reading. Whatever Fighting Fit had in its peak years, it has not been able to find the same spark lately.

What is genuinely interesting about this horse is how conditions matter. On wet or muddy ground, Fighting Fit transforms into a different proposition entirely — two wins from just six races in those conditions works out at 33%, which means it wins roughly 1 in every 3 times the ground gets soft. That is a seriously impressive conversion rate and suggests the horse has a real engine when the conditions suit. On faster ground, the numbers tell a very different story. So the rain, in a sense, is Fighting Fit's best friend.

L P Dempsey has been the regular partner in the saddle, riding the horse in 9 of its 21 races and picking up 1 win together — a rate of around 1 in every 9 (11%). That is below the horse's overall average, though the sample is large enough to be meaningful. The first career win came at Leopardstown back in March 2022, which is one of Ireland's most prestigious tracks — not a bad place to open your account.

Fighting Fit raced just yesterday, so the legs are still being asked questions. At 11, with a long season behind it and form that has gone quiet, the next soft-ground day on the calendar might be the one to watch.