Son Of Tyran

That Ludlow win is the headline of his career so far, and the circumstances around it are worth noting. Son Of Tyran does his best work over longer trips — races of two miles or more — where he has won 1 from 6 attempts, a rate of about 1 in 6. That is meaningfully better than his overall record and suggests stamina is genuinely his friend. Get him over a trip and on the right day, and he becomes a different proposition.

What makes his recent form genuinely interesting is the trajectory. Reading his last six races from most recent backwards — a run just yesterday, then a seventh, then the Ludlow win, then a fifth, then a tenth — you can see a horse that was struggling, found something to win with, and is now being kept busy while the yard try to build on it. Racing him again just a day after his previous outing is aggressive, and it suggests his team at least believes he is in good form right now.

That team is Dan Skelton's yard in Alcester, Warwickshire — one of the powerhouse operations in British racing. Skelton has sent out 198 winners already this season, which is a remarkable number and means Son Of Tyran has the benefit of being trained by someone who genuinely knows how to get a horse ready to win. The puzzle, though, is that Son Of Tyran has done all of his racing at Class 5 level — the lower end of the competitive ladder — and has yet to win at that grade in four attempts. His one win came elsewhere. For a yard operating at that volume, a horse at this level is a small piece of a very large puzzle, but that does not make the story any less worth following.