Mehman

The yard behind Mehman is P J F Murphy's operation, based in Castlecomer, County Kilkenny, and they've sent out four winners already this season — a small but productive string. Shane Foley is the jockey most associated with Mehman, riding the horse 11 times and coming away with 2 wins together, a rate of roughly 1 in every 5 or 6 rides. That's a meaningful partnership in racing terms, suggesting there's a level of mutual understanding built up between rider and horse over time.

What's interesting about Mehman is how conditions matter. On normal ground — not wet, not too firm, just standard — the horse has won 4 of its 22 races in those conditions, again close to that 1-in-5 mark. Strip out the races run in conditions that don't suit, and a clearer picture emerges: this is a horse with genuine ability when everything lines up. Both career wins at Dundalk came under the same roof, which is worth noting — Dundalk is Ireland's all-weather indoor track, and some horses simply take to it where others don't. The most recent win there came on 17 January 2025, about 16 months ago now, so the wait for win number six has been a long one.

Mehman raced just yesterday, which tells you something about how active this horse remains at seven years old. The finishing positions keep coming — seconds, thirds, never far away — and the profile of this horse is really that of a reliable competitor operating just below its own winning threshold. Whether that threshold gets cleared again soon is the question the Murphy yard will be trying to answer.