Spy

The most recent win came at Dundalk in December 2025, around five months ago, so Spy is not a horse living off distant memories. It raced just yesterday, which tells you this is an active, busy campaigner. The recent form string of 12-1-6-3-3-3 shows a mixed picture — that twelfth-place finish sticks out — but the three consecutive third-place finishes before the most recent run suggest a horse that has been knocking on the door and running its race without quite getting over the line.

Where Spy really comes alive is on normal ground at a trip of around a mile and a furlong to a mile and two. At that distance range it wins 2 from 9 races, or roughly 1 in every 4-5 attempts, which is a meaningful jump above its overall win rate of 1 in every 10. Ground conditions matter too — on a standard surface Spy wins at the same rate, 2 from 9. Put those two things together and you have a horse with a fairly specific sweet spot, and a trainer who presumably knows it.

That trainer is C Byrnes, based in Ballingarry, Co Limerick, and the yard has sent out 26 winners already this season — a busy and productive operation. The regular partnership with jockey Philip Byrnes, however, has yet to click. Eleven races together and no wins is a notable blank, though Spy's overall record shows the issue is rarely finishing first regardless of who is aboard. At its best level — the lower tiers of the graded system — Spy wins 2 from just 5 races, or 40%, which is a striking number and suggests that when the horse is dropped into the right company, it is a genuine threat.

Now seven years old, Spy is an experienced, dependable sort. It will not win every week, but it will turn up, run its race, and occasionally remind everyone why it keeps getting entries.