Prefer The Sister

Trained by James Owen in Newmarket, Prefer The Sister is part of a genuinely productive operation — 205 winners sent out this season alone, which is the kind of output that tells you this is not a small outfit finding its feet. Owen's team knows how to place a horse to best effect, and Prefer The Sister looks like a recent beneficiary of exactly that. The career began to take shape at Kempton Park in December 2024, a first win that arrived after a patient wait through the early races. Since then, the record has been building, and the most recent victory came at Newmarket just this week, on 17 July 2026.

The ground is worth paying attention to here. On fast, dry conditions, Prefer The Sister has won 3 of 10 races — a 30% win rate, or almost 1 in every 3 attempts. That is a remarkable uplift from the overall career figures and suggests this horse is a genuinely different proposition when the sun has been out. For context, most horses show only minor variation based on conditions; a jump from 13% to 30% is the kind of difference that makes trainers and punters sit up.

The regular partner in the saddle is Jonny Peate, who has ridden the horse 14 times for one win together — a combination that has not always clicked, winning just 1 in 14. Prefer The Sister tends to race at Class 6, the entry level of British racing, where the competition is accessible but the margins are fine. Winning 1 of 16 at that level overall looks thin, but three wins in six recent races suggest the horse has found a level of form that the raw career numbers do not yet reflect. This is a horse worth watching while the ground stays dry.