Modern Style

The recent form tells a compelling story. Strip away one poor run and a blank further back, and what you have is a horse that has won two of its last four completed races, finishing first or second in four of its last five outings. That kind of consistency at this stage of a career is the sort of thing that makes trainers quietly optimistic. The first win came at Exeter on 17 April 2026, followed just five days later by another at Taunton on 22 April — back-to-back victories that suggest a horse who figured something out and ran with it.

The distance is the key detail here. Over long trips of two miles and beyond, Modern Style has won 2 of 5 races — a 40% win rate, or 2 in every 5 — which is a genuinely striking number. For context, most horses at this level are doing well to win 1 in 5. It suggests a horse that settles into a rhythm and finds more when the race really begins to ask questions late on. Shorter trips have been less convincing, which is useful information: this is a stayer, and treating it as one appears to have unlocked something.

Trainer Nigel Hawke operates a small yard in Stoodleigh, Devon, and has sent out 9 winners this season. That is a tight, focused operation — not a factory churning through runners, but a team that knows its horses well. Having a horse like Modern Style in form, raced as recently as yesterday, suggests everything is ticking over nicely heading into the summer.