Stepdance

Trained by Henry De Bromhead out of Knockeen in County Waterford — a yard that has sent out 107 winners already this season, which tells you how seriously the operation takes its business — Stepdance has found a particular affinity with Tramore, the tight, seaside track that suits horses with a certain kind of grit. Both career victories on normal ground came there, and the most recent of them, in August 2025, was the second win in the space of six weeks. That kind of back-to-back winning is not something every horse can manage; it suggests Stepdance had genuinely hit form, not just fluked a result.

The ground matters here. On normal conditions, Stepdance has won 2 of 6 races — a 33% win rate that is comfortably the best of any surface profile in the record. That one-in-three ratio is the kind of number a trainer files away and waits patiently to exploit. The preferred trip of a mile and three to a mile and four furlongs adds another layer to that picture — a distance that rewards stamina and a relaxed jumping style rather than raw early speed.

What is harder to explain is the partnership with Jack Kearney. Six races together, zero wins. That does not necessarily mean the combination is wrong — plenty of jockey-horse pairings go through quiet patches — but with Stepdance's two most recent finishes reading ninth and eighth, there is clearly something the team is still searching for. The horse raced just one day ago, which means it is in the thick of an active campaign right now, and with normal ground and Tramore in the forecast, the profile of a horse that can win again is clearly there. Whether it translates is another matter — but then that is always the question, and answering it is precisely why people keep watching.