Paradias

What makes Paradias genuinely interesting right now is a late-career surge on the all-weather tracks. Trainer Alan King noted that the horse had been lightly raced and was only recently introduced to artificial surfaces — and the results have been striking. Three Class 2 wins in the space of about a year, at Wolverhampton on Boxing Day 2024, Kempton in January 2025, and Lingfield in February 2026, suggest a horse who has found his best form at seven, an age when plenty of horses are winding down. King was candid after Wolverhampton: he wasn't sure why Paradias hadn't been tried on the all-weather sooner, but having tested it once and liked what he saw, he rolled the dice again — and was rewarded.

The Lingfield record is particularly eye-catching. Two wins from just three visits is the kind of ratio that makes trainers circle a course on the calendar. Some horses simply click with a particular track — its shape, its surface, its bends — and Paradias appears to be one of them. His most recent win came there just four months ago, which means this is very much a live story rather than a fond memory.

Rossa Ryan has ridden him in 14 of his 37 races and won twice together, a partnership that accounts for some of the horse's best days. Meanwhile, Alan King's yard at Wroughton has sent out 57 winners already this season, so Paradias is operating within one of the more productive stables in the country. King has also flagged that Paradias stays best over a mile and three quarters to two miles, and handles normal or slightly soft ground well — winning 2 from 6 on each surface, roughly 1 in 3 each time — which gives the yard a clear map of when and where to target him. At seven and in form, there may be more to come.