Al Qareem

The headline number is five wins at the highest level of British racing — Class 1, the races that matter most — including two at York and two at Ascot in the space of twelve months. York and Ascot are the prestige venues, the ones that attract the best horses and the biggest crowds. Winning once at that level is an achievement. Winning repeatedly, across different venues and different occasions, is what separates a good horse from a genuinely special one. Al Qareem has won 8 of its 20 races at Class 1 level — that's 4 in every 10 at the very top tier, which is a remarkable conversion rate when you consider the quality of the opposition.

The form right now is as good as it gets. Three wins from the last six races, including a victory just this week at Musselburgh, means Al Qareem arrives at every race as a serious threat. When the ground turns wet and muddy, that threat becomes almost a certainty — three wins from three races on soft or heavy ground amounts to a perfect record, and that kind of dominance in specific conditions is something smart followers of the sport pay close attention to. Equally striking is the record over a mile and three to four furlongs: five wins from six races at that trip, an 83% conversion. Get Al Qareem in those conditions, over that distance, and you are looking at a horse doing exactly what it was built to do.

The partnership with jockey Clifford Lee has been central to all of this. Lee has ridden Al Qareem in 22 races and won 9 of them — roughly 41%, almost mirroring the horse's overall win rate — which suggests a real understanding between the two. Behind the scenes, trainer K R Burke's yard at Coverham in North Yorkshire has been in outstanding form, sending out 138 winners this season alone. A yard firing like that, with a horse in this kind of condition, is a combination that tends to make people pay attention. Al Qareem raced just yesterday and is very much a horse in the middle of its story.