Tim Toe

De Bromhead is one of Irish racing's elite trainers, and the numbers back that up: his yard has sent out 107 winners already this season. That kind of firepower means horses in his care tend to be well-prepared, well-placed, and well-fancied — so when one of them wins at a 40% rate, it stands out even within a high-performing stable. Tim Toe clearly belongs here.

His most recent run, at Bellewstown five weeks ago, offered a revealing glimpse of what he might be capable of. Jockey Ronan Whelan was candid afterwards: the race didn't unfold at a particularly punishing pace, and Tim Toe arrived at the front earlier than ideal. He idled once there — a horse looking around rather than digging in — but still got the job done. Whelan's assessment was striking. He described it as a "fact-finding mission," with trainer De Bromhead simply asking him to settle in and learn. What he found was a horse with a genuine change of pace, the kind of acceleration that tends to be a gift rather than something you can train into a horse. "A bit of class" was the phrase he used, and jockeys don't throw that around lightly.

Earlier in his career, a run on wet ground seemed to expose a preference for faster conditions — he had won his debut on good ground and looked more comfortable for it. That is a useful thing to know. A horse that performs best when the ground is riding quick, trained by a man who knows exactly where and when to place him, and showing form figures of 3-1-5-2-1 in his last five races — the fifth-place finish now looks like the anomaly rather than the trend. Tim Toe raced just yesterday, and the direction of travel is firmly upward.