Shaman Champion

Cox trains out of Lambourn and has been in fine form this season, sending out 48 winners, so he knows what a promising horse looks like. His confidence that Shaman Champion could "run a good race" in the Windsor Castle Stakes — a top Class 1 sprint for young horses at Royal Ascot — tells you this isn't just a horse that won a race somewhere quiet and got lucky. The Leicester win opened a door to the biggest stage in British racing.

The numbers since then, though, ask a question. Shaman Champion has not won in its last six races, with recent finishes of 2nd, 8th, 2nd, 7th, 10th, and 11th — patchy, to put it kindly. At the top level, Class 2 and above, it has run three times without winning once. That's not unusual for a young horse feeling its way, but it does mean the debut sparkle hasn't yet turned into a habit of winning.

Where the horse does look more comfortable is over shorter distances — five to six-and-a-half furlongs — where it has won 1 race from 5, a win rate of 20%, or roughly one in every five. That's a meaningful number at that trip, suggesting there's a horse here that wants to travel fast and finish quick rather than grind it out over longer distances.

Raced just yesterday and still very much in the thick of things, Shaman Champion is a horse whose story is still being written. One debut win, a trainer with real belief in it, and a record that has yet to match the early promise — the next chapter will tell us whether that Leicester performance was a glimpse of something special or simply a very good day.