Azahara Palace

At Chepstow she is a different horse entirely. She has won 3 of her 4 races there, a win rate of 75 percent that marks the track as her spiritual home. Soft or slightly soft ground is where she operates most effectively too: she wins roughly 1 in every 3 races when conditions are wet and holding. Her trainer Adrian Keatley, who runs a productive yard at Ryedale in North Yorkshire that has sent out 43 winners this season, is clear about what she needs. She struggles when the ground is fast and firm—it brings out the speed in others and she simply cannot compete at that tempo. On slower ground where the pace is sapped from the race, she is at her most dangerous. Keatley believes she could even run at a mark of 90 on the right surface, a rating that would put her among better company.

That assessment looks prescient now, because her last win came nearly nine months ago at Hexham on 10 December 2025. She has since run six times without a victory, most recently nine days ago. The pattern is consistent: fast ground or a track that does not suit her, and she cannot find the finish. She first won at Chepstow on 26 June 2023, and that debut victory set the template for everything that followed. Keatley's challenge now is finding the right combination of course, conditions and race type. When she does, Azahara Palace reminds you why she won that first race and why three wins at Chepstow are not a fluke.