My Great Mate

The more intriguing detail is My Great Mate's absolute preference for wet ground. In six races on soft or muddy conditions, this horse has won three times—a 50% win rate that is genuinely remarkable and suggests real class in the mud. By contrast, the win rate drops significantly elsewhere, which means the team clearly knows to pick their moments. That's good horsemanship: knowing when a horse's strengths align with the conditions on offer rather than running blindly through the year.

My Great Mate has been in the care of W P Mullins's yard at Muine Bheag, which has sent out 215 winners this season alone. The horse's main partner in the saddle has been Paul Townend, though that partnership hasn't quite clicked—just 1 win from 6 races together. The last six runs tell a story of minor placing: a second, two fourths, a third, and just one victory in six outings. That's not a horse in decline, but it does suggest the good days may need the right conditions and the right race to arrive. Yesterday's run was recent enough to keep this horse firmly on the radar, and for any the yard watching the weather forecast with an eye on Galway and a stretch of rain coming in, My Great Mate deserves attention.