Its On The Line

The numbers at Punchestown are particularly striking — three wins from four visits, a 75% win rate at a single track. That's not luck; that's a horse that has figured something out about that venue and keeps going back to prove it. Soft, muddy ground brings out the best in it too, with three wins from four races in those conditions. When the ground gets heavy and others struggle, Its On The Line tends to thrive.

The biggest win on its CV came at Aintree in April 2024, a top-level Class 2 race — one of the most prestigious events in Britain. More recently, it won at Down Royal on Boxing Day 2025, putting itself right back in the spotlight. Jockey Derek O'Connor, who has ridden this horse to six of its nine career wins together, was effusive afterwards: the horse "keeps finding," he said, and "knows how to win" — which sounds simple, but O'Connor means it as one of the highest compliments you can pay a racehorse. Plenty of talented horses don't quite know what to do when it matters most. This one does.

The one cloud hanging over an otherwise glittering record is Cheltenham. Four attempts at the Hunters' Chase there; four second-place finishes. Mullins was frank about it ahead of this year's Festival — they planned to "tweak one or two things" to finally get the horse over the line. It didn't happen again. O'Connor, gutted but gracious, called it "bitterly disappointing" but vowed the horse would make amends at Aintree and Punchestown. Given what this horse has already done at both those venues, nobody should bet against it. The story isn't finished yet.