Alparslan

Trained by K R Burke at Coverham in North Yorkshire, Alparslan is part of a yard that has been firing on all cylinders — 140 winners in the current season alone, which is a serious number by any measure. Burke clearly knows what he has on his hands. After a smooth run at Newbury in April 2026, he described Alparslan as "a high-class horse" without any hesitation, and the results back that up. The horse started his winning career at Leicester in August 2025 and has progressed steadily ever since.

The most interesting wrinkle in Alparslan's story so far is Newmarket. The famous track there has a distinctive dip and rise in the finishing straight, and Alparslan — who Burke says travels strongly and moves through races with real fluency — did not take to it when he ran in the Dewhurst, one of the most prestigious two-year-old races in Britain. He finished fifth. Burke has since suggested it may have been the track layout rather than ability that cost him, noting that a flat, conventional course seems to suit this horse far better. Newbury, where he won most recently just five weeks ago, is as straightforward as tracks come.

That win has put the biggest decisions of his young career firmly on the table. Burke is now weighing up one of the Guineas — the classic mile races that define the early part of a three-year-old's season — with the English, Irish, and even the French versions all under consideration. The French Guineas is run around a bend at Longchamp, and Burke is openly uncertain whether that would suit Alparslan. The Curragh in Ireland, by contrast, is a flat, sweeping track that could be ideal. Racing at the highest level is about finding the right race as much as it is about raw talent, and it is to Burke's credit that he is thinking this carefully. Alparslan raced just a day ago and remains in active training, so answers are coming soon.