Sainte Lucie

Her career began to take shape on the last day of 2024 at Punchestown, where trainer Willie Mullins watched her win and immediately saw something special. "Sainte Lucie looks one out of the top drawer," he said afterwards, adding that he expected to be targeting the biggest races with her. That kind of declaration from Mullins — who operates one of the most powerful yards in Ireland and has sent out 220 winners this season alone — is not made lightly.

The path since that debut win was not entirely smooth. She ran seven times before winning again, including a race at Cheltenham where her jockey Charlie O'Dwyer felt she was badly hampered by traffic and never got a clean run. That frustration made the win at Killarney this week all the sweeter. O'Dwyer was effusive afterwards, noting that a longer distance had been the key and that every time he asked her to find more, she delivered. "She was very good when she won her juvenile hurdle and maybe just lost her way a little bit," he said — honest words that make the current return to form feel more meaningful.

Her last six results read 1-1-7-10-14-7, which means two wins bookending a rough patch in the middle. That kind of dip and recovery is common in young horses still finding their feet, and the improvement since stepping up in trip suggests she may be working out what kind of horse she wants to be. Mullins had flagged back in November that patience would be the approach, and the evidence is that the patience has paid off. She raced just yesterday and is very much in the thick of an active campaign. With a trainer who targets the biggest occasions and a horse apparently hitting her stride, the next few months look genuinely interesting.