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Royal Ascot hopeful Thunderbear will be among the horses showcased to the public when Jack Davison gets this year’s round of trainer open days underway.

The colt won just once in nine starts last season but looks a different proposition as a three-year-old and opened his 2023 account with victory in the Bet At racingtv.com Handicap in Nottingham last week.

Davison learned plenty from the way Thunderbear embraced the overseas experience and hopes a tilt at June’s showpiece meeting could be similarly fruitful.

“It took a while for us to figure him out but he has really improved from age two to three and he really enjoyed travelling,” he said.

“He has thrived in the last couple of weeks and perked up when we brought him overseas.

“The style of racing in the UK really suits him, they tend to go a stronger gallop and that has really brought out his improvement. I was glad to see him go out and do what we thought he was capable of. 

“We’ll see what the handicapper does but he’ll probably have multiple entries at Royal Ascot. 

“There’s the three-year-old five furlong sprint, there’s the Wokingham [Stakes], and maybe one other option for him as well. 

“He does enjoy travelling, myself and the lads could tell that from his demeanour, so we’ll have to try and recreate that for Royal Ascot.”

Davison obtained his full license in December 2017 and has had plenty of success since, not least with Mooneista, who landed the Group 2 Paddy Power Sapphire Stakes at the Curragh in 2021.

The five-year-old has recently been sold on and is now under Joseph O’Brien’s tutelage but Davison is looking to the future with his promising squad of two-year-olds, with Thunderbear’s little sister Scorchio chief among them.

“She lives up to her name, she’s all speed and she’s ready to roll now,” he said.

“She’ll race in Cork in a couple of weeks and she’s one to look out for, she’s a real two-year-old type and hasn’t missed a beat so far. 

“Hopefully she can be competitive in Irish maidens, which is hard to do but she’s showing up well.

“The last yearling sales season was the first time we were in a position to go out and spend a decent amount of money and I think we’ve bought well.

“There is plenty to look forward to in our two-year-old division but it’s easy to say that now, they have to go and do it. 

“We’ve been working with them for the last six to eight months as we break most of them out as well and I couldn’t be happier with where most of them are at.”

Members of the Dunboyne community will be able to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse into life at Killarkin Stud on Saturday (May 13) when Davison throws open his doors, an event he is looking forward to putting on.

“We are quite a unique yard in that we have quite an organic way of training,” he said.

“We train them to be horses first and then racehorses after that, so horses will walk first and then have a standard warm up at an indoor school, and then over to the gallops where they will canter, they will come home, get a wash and then over to the paddock.

“We want to show all of that to the audience, they can ask as many questions as they like and I will try to be as transparent as possible to give them an idea on what it is like training horses.

“Thunderbear is a good model to show people and I enjoy talking people through the confirmation of a racehorse and how all the different parts should work. 

“With our two-year-olds, for whom the dream is well and truly still alive, I’ll explain what I’d look for in a two-year-old type as well as an older, maturing type, to give people a picture of what a two-year-old who is ready to run looks like.

“I am just trying to give people who are not part of it the opportunity to get a look at a standard morning of a horse trainer.

“It is about getting people along from all walks of life to give them the opportunity to come in and see the set up, see how we train horses, see the level of care that they get every day, and to give them the opportunity to pet the horses and give them a carrot and get up close and personal with the horses.”

To find out more about the 2023 trainer open mornings and register your attendance, click here.