Oriole

The sweet spot is a distance of around a mile and three to a mile and four furlongs. At that range, Oriole has won 3 of 15 races — that is 1 in every 5, which is a completely different horse to the one that turns up elsewhere. Finding the right trip is one of the most important variables in racing, and Oriole's record suggests the team at Mark Fahey's yard in Cloneygath, Co Kildare, know exactly where this horse belongs. Fahey has been in good form this season, sending out 24 winners, so there is clearly a yard operating with some confidence behind this horse.

The most recent win came at Galway in August 2024 — nearly 22 months ago now — and that gap is hard to ignore. The last six runs read as a pretty bleak sequence, with a second place offering the only flicker of promise and the most recent five efforts producing finishes of seventh, eighth, tenth, ninth, and then a blank. That is a horse that has been trying without reward for a while. Current form, in plain terms, is not good.

Dylan Browne McMonagle has been the regular partner, riding Oriole in 5 of those races and winning once — that is 1 from 5, a 20% win rate together, which is actually better than Oriole's overall average. When horse and jockey click, there is something there.

The career began at Leicester in July 2022, and Oriole typically competes at the lower end of the racing ladder, where the fields are more accessible and the prize money more modest. A horse operating at this level is not competing for the big prizes — it is a consistent, working racer trying to find opportunities that suit. Right now, the challenge for Fahey's yard is finding a race where the distance is right and the run of things goes Oriole's way, because the ability to win at 1 in 5 over the right trip suggests there is still a day out there worth waiting for.