New Zealand

That debut win came at The Curragh in July 2025, and the horse it beat — Isaac Newton — was no pushover. Winning in that kind of first-time company tells you something. More telling still was what came next: a run in a Group 1 race at Saint-Cloud, one of the top races in France, where New Zealand finished not far behind the winner Puerto Rico. Group 1 is the highest level the sport offers. Finishing in touching distance of a Group 1 winner on just your second career run is the kind of thing that makes people sit up and take notice.

New Zealand is trained by Aidan P O'Brien at Cashel in County Tipperary — one of the most powerful racing yards on the planet. This season alone, that operation has sent out 144 winners. When a trainer of that calibre talks about a lightly-raced 3-year-old with genuine excitement, it is worth paying attention. O'Brien has flagged this one as a horse that will stay well over longer distances and has pencilled in a Derby trial as the next step — the Derby being the most prestigious flat race for 3-year-olds in Britain and Ireland. That is an ambitious target, and the fact it is even being considered tells you everything about how highly the team regard this horse.

New Zealand has been off the track for around six months, so there is a natural question mark about how it returns from that break. But with only three races in its legs, it remains fresh and unexposed — a horse whose best days are almost certainly still ahead of it.