Alexei

The six-year-old made his first career win at Taunton in November 2024, a modest enough start. What followed was anything but. Within twelve months, Alexei had won a top-level race at Ascot, another at Cheltenham, and then a third at Wincanton in February 2026 — three of jump racing's most prestigious venues, all in the space of about fifteen weeks. He now competes routinely at Class 1 level, the very highest tier in British racing, and has won 2 of his 5 races there. That is a 40% win rate at the top table — a remarkable return that very few horses ever get close to.

Joe Tizzard, who trains Alexei from his yard in Milborne Port in Dorset — a yard that has sent out 58 winners this season alone — has spoken candidly about how quickly things escalated. After a strong run in the Welsh Champion Hurdle, Alexei went to Ascot and won brilliantly, earning a rise of 7 pounds in his official rating. That is the racing authorities' way of saying: this horse is better than we thought, so we are making life harder for him. Tizzard has also been clear that Alexei does not want heavy, muddy ground — he is a horse built for pace, for fast conditions and a truly run race, and jockey Brendan Powell believes he has actually gotten quicker this season. Powell, who has ridden Alexei in 10 of his 12 races and won 4 of them, described him simply as "a cracking horse" after a fourth-place finish in the Champion Hurdle — one of the biggest jump races in the world.

That Champion Hurdle run, where a mistake at the final hurdle likely cost him a place on the podium, was not a defeat to be embarrassed by. It was a statement. "If you'd said to us in the autumn he was going to be a Champion Hurdle horse," Tizzard admitted after the Wincanton win, "we were nowhere near it." The fact that they found themselves there at all — and competitive when they got there — is what makes Alexei one of the more compelling stories in jump racing right now.