The Dara Man

The most recent win came at Kilbeggan in August 2024, now twenty months ago, and since then the horse has gone six races without getting back to the winner's enclosure. The latest run was 99 days ago, so this is a horse returning from a break of about three months. Whether fresher legs make a difference remains to be seen, but breaks like this can sometimes unlock a horse that has gone a little stale.

The partnership to watch is the one with jockey Danny Mullins. In ten races together, the pair have won twice — a win rate of 20%, or roughly 1 in every 5 rides. That is meaningfully better than The Dara Man's overall record, and it suggests something clicks when Mullins is in the saddle. For a horse that wins only 7% of its races overall, nearly tripling that figure with one particular jockey is the kind of detail worth noting.

On the training side, John Patrick Ryan's yard in Templemore, Co Tipperary, has been in decent nick this season with 23 winners sent out — so the team behind this horse knows how to get horses ready to run. Normal conditions suit The Dara Man best: 2 wins from 13 races on standard ground, which works out at 15%, or roughly 1 in every 6 to 7 races. That is where the horse has shown its best form, and it is worth keeping in mind when conditions are in its favour.

The Dara Man is never going to be confused with a high-class performer — three wins from 44 races tells its own story — but this is a horse that has been around the block, knows its job, and at ten years old still has the trainer sending it out. Sometimes consistency and longevity are a story in themselves.