Royal Champion

He is an 8-year-old trained by K R Burke at Coverham in North Yorkshire, a yard that has sent out 140 winners already this season — one of the most productive operations in the country. Royal Champion has become one of its flagship horses, and the relationship with jockey Clifford Lee has been a key part of that story. Together they have won 3 of 6 races, a 50% win rate that is remarkable at any level of the sport. After York in the summer, Burke admitted he had not expected quite what he got that day — the horse had been working well at home, but he had always worked well. What he actually produced on the track was something else entirely.

The recent form reads 3-1-7-4-1-1, which tells a story of a horse who drifts when not at his best but is utterly clinical when everything clicks. Since the end of 2024 he has won three times at the highest level — Lingfield on New Year's Eve, Southwell in February, and York in July. Then, in what the trainer described with barely concealed excitement, came Bahrain and then Saudi Arabia, where he won despite faster ground and a stronger field, looking like the winner four furlongs from home. Burke is now pointing him at Hong Kong and the QEII Cup, where he will face Romantic Warrior — one of the best horses in the world — on his home turf. The Hong Kong team, according to Burke, think he has a genuine chance. That is not the kind of thing people say lightly.

He has not raced for roughly eight months, which means this return will be watched very closely. The question is whether the freshness helps him or whether he needs a race to find his best. Given what he has done when fully wound up, most people will be hoping it is the former.