Kylian

What makes those five wins especially notable is where they came. Four of them — at Sandown in a top-level Class 1 race, and then three consecutive victories at Newcastle, Lingfield, and Wolverhampton across the winter of 2024 into 2025 — arrived in some of the better races on the calendar. Three wins from nine attempts at Class 2 level, which works out at 1 in 3 at that tier, is a genuinely strong record. Most horses at this grade win far less often. That winter hat-trick in particular showed a horse in the form of his life, putting together back-to-back-to-back victories across three different tracks in the space of two months.

His trainer Robert Cowell has been candid about the fact that Kylian has always been something of a slow burner — a horse who has learned his craft through racing itself rather than arriving fully formed. That description actually helps explain his record: modest early on, steadily improving, then capable of stringing together a brilliant sequence once everything clicked. Cowell notes he ran a promising third at Leicester recently, carrying near-top weight on a track with a hill that found him out, and that a wide draw at York did him no favours on his most recent outing. The trainer still believes a big win is in him this year.

Luke Morris has been the jockey to trust when Kylian lines up — three wins from five rides together, which is an extraordinary 3-in-5 partnership rate. On normal ground, Kylian wins 4 from 7, again roughly 1 in every 2. He has not won in his last six races, and his most recent form figures of 6-8-15 suggest he has been below his best lately. But with 24 winners already sent out by Cowell's yard this season, and a horse whose trainer genuinely believes he has another big performance waiting, it would be a mistake to write him off.