Imperial Alex

The Class 3 puzzle is the strangest part of the story. Imperial Alex has run at that level seven times and has never once won — not once in seven attempts. Yet drop it into a Class 2 race, one of the top races in Britain, and it delivered. That win at Uttoxeter in May 2024 wasn't a fluke at a lower level; it was a genuine performance against better horses. How a horse can go winless at a mid-tier level and then beat stronger competition is one of those racing riddles that has no tidy answer, but it makes Imperial Alex genuinely hard to write off.

The recent form tells a compelling story on its own. Six runs back, a win. Then a rough patch — fifth, seventh, eleventh — the kind of sequence that makes even loyal followers start to wonder. Then a second place. Then, just this week, a win at Stratford-on-Avon. That's two wins from the last six races, and the bounce-back after that difficult middle section says something about the horse's resilience.

Stan Sheppard has been in the saddle for 17 of those 25 races, winning 3 of them — roughly 1 in every 6 rides together. That's a long-standing partnership, and it's Sheppard who has been there for much of the journey. The operation behind the horse is Tom Lacey's yard at Woolhope in Herefordshire, a team that has sent out 37 winners this season alone. That's a yard in serious form, and Imperial Alex's win this week adds to a picture of a stable that knows how to place its horses well.

At nine years old and still racing — still winning — Imperial Alex is the kind of horse that earns genuine affection. It doesn't always do what you expect. Sometimes it frustrates. But then it goes and wins a big race, or bounces back after a run of poor results, and reminds everyone why it's still here.