Fool Me Once

The recent form does at least show some signs of life. A third-place finish five races back suggested the horse can get competitive, and a fifth more recently keeps it in the conversation. But the dashes in that sequence — indicating races where it finished well out of the picture — are a reminder that consistency has been the missing ingredient throughout its career. It ran just yesterday, which means it is very much an active project, not a horse anyone has given up on.

Keith Donoghue has ridden it five times and is still waiting for his first win aboard the horse, which tells its own story. That said, trainer Gavin Cromwell is one of the more respected operations in Irish racing, based out of Navan in County Meath, and his yard has sent out 97 winners already this season — a genuinely impressive volume that shows this is a team that knows how to get horses to perform. The fact that Cromwell has kept Fool Me Once in work and racing suggests there is still belief somewhere that a win is possible. Whether the horse shares that belief is, of course, another matter entirely.