Karafon

The trouble is, that Clonmel win is now 17 months in the rear-view mirror, and Karafon hasn't added to it since. His last six races read 9-2-6-5-6-3 going backwards in time — which means a second place and a third are in there, but he hasn't crossed the line first since. For a horse his trainer clearly rates, that gap is growing hard to ignore. S R B Crawford, who operates out of Larne in County Antrim and has sent out 12 winners this season, was talking in late 2024 about aiming Karafon at some of the better races in his division — a sign the yard believed there was genuine ability to unlock. The second place in recent form suggests he can still compete respectably, but there's a difference between placing and winning, and Karafon has been firmly on the wrong side of that line lately.

What makes him worth watching, despite the wait, is that the original win came with a quality feel to it — not a horse grinding out a result, but one that jumped well and travelled within himself. Horses like that can click again if the right conditions come together. He raced just yesterday, so the team clearly still have confidence he belongs on a track. With 3 places from 14 races overall, he's not disgracing himself — but at 6 years old, the window for turning promise into a more consistent record is starting to narrow.