Brookie

The standout moment of Brookie's career so far came at Doncaster on 1 March 2025, where he won a Class 2 race — one of the top tier contests in British racing. It was no fluke: jockey Ben Godfrey said afterwards that Brookie "hadn't run badly all season" and that conditions were perfectly suited. The team had freshened him up after a tough ask against a high-class rival at Kempton, and Doncaster looked like the right spot to deliver. It clearly was. That win matters because Class 2 is where you find serious horses, and Brookie proved on the day he belonged there.

What the stats make clear is that Brookie is a horse who needs things to go right. On normal ground, he has won 3 of 7 races — a remarkable 43% — and at Class 3 level he has won 3 of 6. Those are strong numbers, and they suggest a horse with genuine ability when the conditions stack up in his favour. Trainer Anthony Honeyball has been explicit about this: when Brookie was tried on wet, heavy ground at Ascot, he was struggling from early in the race. Honeyball described it as one of the rare times the horse had "let them down", and the finger pointed squarely at the going rather than the horse. The plan, naturally, is to head back to Doncaster where conditions are more likely to suit.

The one cloud on the horizon is the partnership with regular jockey Peter Carberry, who has yet to steer Brookie to a win in 10 races together. That's not necessarily damning — horses and jockeys can simply not click, and Brookie's best result this season came with a different rider in the plate. Honeyball's yard has sent out 51 winners this season, so the operation is clearly in fine form. Brookie raced just yesterday and is clearly still being campaigned actively — the question now is whether the yard can find him another day on good ground, ideally back at the track where he shone brightest.