Sergeant Wilko

Kevin Ryan, who trains him from his yard in Hambleton, North Yorkshire, has been in fine form — 45 winners sent out this season alone — and he has always spoken warmly about this horse's potential over six furlongs at the bigger festivals. Ryan has described him as exactly the kind of horse his owners want running at the high-profile summer meetings, and the 2024 season suggested they were right to be optimistic.

The ground matters enormously with Sergeant Wilko. On slightly soft underfoot conditions — when there is a touch of moisture in the ground but not heavy going — he has won 3 from 6 races, a remarkable 50% success rate. That is the version of this horse you want to see. On faster, drier ground his numbers are far more modest, and it may explain some of the inconsistency across a 25-race career where seven placed finishes sit alongside five wins and several blank days.

Tom Eaves has ridden him in 10 of those 25 races, picking up 2 of the 5 wins — a partnership that mirrors the horse's overall win rate almost exactly. Reliable, if not electric. The pair know each other well enough, and Eaves will be familiar with how Sergeant Wilko travels and when to ask the question.

The honest assessment right now is that his last six races have produced no wins, and his most recent victory came 22 months ago at Goodwood. He is five years old and still active — he raced just yesterday — but that gap is hard to ignore. The talent is clearly there, evidenced by those back-to-back Class 2 wins in the summer of 2024. Whether the right conditions, the right track, and the right day can bring all of that together again is the question his team will be trying to answer.