Illinois

What makes him genuinely special is what he does at Ascot. He has raced there three times and won twice, including a Class 1 victory in June 2024 and another this very week. Winning 2 from 3 at one of the world's most famous tracks — at the highest level of the sport — is the kind of statistic that makes trainers start planning around a horse rather than the other way around. On fast, dry ground he is even more formidable, winning 2 of his 4 races on that surface. When the sun is out and the ground is quick, Illinois is a serious problem for his rivals.

His partnership with Ryan Moore, one of the most decorated jockeys in the sport, has produced 2 wins from 6 races together — roughly 1 in every 3. Moore is not a jockey who rides bad horses, and the fact that he keeps coming back to Illinois tells its own story.

O'Brien has spoken about how the horse's season was reshaped on the fly. The original plan had Illinois as a Gold Cup horse for next year, being trained as a mile-and-a-half performer. But when stablemate Kyprios retired, O'Brien switched Illinois to the staying trip sooner than expected — and he still won at Ascot. That kind of adaptability, both from the trainer and the horse, is rare. O'Brien has also hinted the horse could drop back in distance for the Coronation Cup or step up to the Cup races over longer. The fact that both options are genuinely on the table says everything about his versatility.

His recent run of form reads 1-6-3-7-2-2 — a winner and two seconds in five of his last six races, with only one poor effort in between. Illinois is in the middle of a strong season, racing as recently as yesterday, and the feeling around O'Brien's yard is that he is exactly the horse they want him to be.