Knighton

Before he ever saw a hurdle, Knighton was running on the Flat, and he finished second to a horse now rated 90 — a solid benchmark that suggests he was always operating at a decent level. He went through the sales, was bought by someone else, and then trainer Oliver Greenall and Josh Guerriero liked him so much they went back and bought him again for 75,000 guineas. That is not a casual decision. You do not spend that kind of money on a horse you are not genuinely excited about.

His recent form reads 2-2-4-4-8-2 from his last six outings — three seconds and two fourth-place finishes suggest a horse that keeps showing up near the front without quite getting over the line. The win is clearly in him; the results just haven't gone his way yet. He has raced three times at Class 4 level, which is a solid mid-tier standard, and has placed in all three of his placed finishes across his career — so this is not a horse that struggles, just one still searching for its moment.

What makes Knighton genuinely interesting is what the team have in mind for him. The Fred Winter is one of the most competitive and prestigious races of the entire National Hunt season at the Cheltenham Festival — a Grade 3 prize run in front of tens of thousands of people at the sport's biggest stage. The plan is to win a couple of races first, get him a handicap rating, and then aim him squarely at that target. The yard, which has already sent out 43 winners this season, clearly knows what it is doing — and with a horse bought back at significant expense, Knighton is very much one to watch as winter sets in.