Special John

His win rate sits at 23%, or roughly 1 in every 4 or 5 races — which is solid rather than spectacular, but the picture gets more interesting when you look at the conditions he loves. On wet or muddy ground, he's won 2 of his 5 races, a 40% win rate that puts him in a completely different bracket. That's almost a coin flip in his favour when the weather does its worst, and any trainer worth their salt will be watching the forecast carefully before committing him to a race. Sam Thomas, who operates out of Lisvane in South Glamorgan and has sent out 23 winners already this season, clearly knows exactly what he has on his hands.

The class picture is equally telling. Special John competes mainly at Class 5 — the bread-and-butter end of jump racing, where horses are evenly matched and winning is genuinely hard — and at that level he's won 2 from 5, another 40% record. That suggests he's operating comfortably within his comfort zone and winning when everything lines up right. His career started at Exeter in November 2025, and his most recent win came at Bangor-on-Dee in May 2026, just two months ago. He raced again just yesterday, so this is a horse currently in the middle of a busy campaign.

His last six runs read 7-2-1-2-5-5 — two slightly disappointing finishes coming back to a win, then two more solid placed efforts, and a seventh last time. That's a horse who blows hot and cold in the short term, but whose overall numbers say he's far more consistent than any single run suggests. When the ground rides soft and the class is right, Special John has a habit of making people look very clever for backing him.