Horses don’t lie. They either feel better or they don’t, and Tax Ruling’s win in the $150,000 Calvin Houghland Grade I Hurdle Stakes at Iroquois Steeple-chase, May 14, proved he’s gotten over his melancholy in a big way.

The 8-year-old son of Dynaformer was hardly the favorite, despite winning this race last year and setting the track record in the three-mile hurdle mara-thon in Nashville, Tenn.

But that victory seemed like a fluke, a flash in the pan, as he failed time and again to win his next four big money jump starts.