Will Do

What Elliott and his team have always known is that Will Do is built for a specific kind of race: long, relentless, and ideally on normal to soft ground. After his first career win at Cork in April 2023, Elliott was already talking about the horse in glowing terms — pointing to the way he grinded out that victory, looking beaten several times before finding more. "All he does is gallop and stay," Elliott has said more recently, and that is not a complaint. It is almost an admiration. Jockey Jack Kennedy, who has partnered Will Do to both of his wins together from 10 rides — a win rate of 20%, or 2 in every 10 — has noted that the horse is simply better the further he goes, and that he wants conditions on the softer side to show his best.

The last win came at Thurles in November 2023, which is now 30 months ago — a long gap that will concern anyone looking at the form on paper. His recent runs show two promising efforts mixed in with some disappointing ones, and he has not troubled the judge in his last six races. But Elliott is not writing him off. After a run in the Munster National, the trainer pointed to the Troytown at Navan as a likely target, suggesting the horse would come on plenty from that outing. The Troytown is a serious staying test — exactly the kind of race Will Do was seemingly made for.

Gordon Elliott's yard has sent out 210 winners already this season, which is the output of an operation running at extraordinary levels. Within that machine, Will Do is not the headline act — but he is a horse his trainer clearly believes in, and one who has shown that when the conditions are right, he can produce something. Whether the Troytown brings that out of him again is the question worth watching.