Ten Bob Tony

The recent form makes for compelling reading. After a quiet patch that included an eighth and a thirteenth, Ten Bob Tony has rattled off back-to-back wins, most recently at Ascot just this week. Racing at the very top level (Class 1) is brutally competitive — only around 1 in 7 of the best horses wins races at that grade — and Ten Bob Tony has been doing exactly that with increasing confidence. The Ascot win comes just a day ago, meaning this horse is racing fit and in the form of its life.

Trainer Ed Walker operates out of Upper Lambourn in Berkshire and has had a remarkable season, sending out 76 winners. He's a trainer who thinks carefully about his horses, and his comments earlier this spring reveal a lot. He was candid that a disappointing run in the Gladness Stakes came down to tough conditions — wet, heavy ground that made it almost impossible to come from behind — and that a fresher, more positively ridden rival had the advantage. He spoke about possibly stepping Ten Bob Tony up to a mile to see if the extra distance could unlock even more. That kind of open-minded thinking suggests there may still be more to come from this horse.

His assistant Matty Hicks put it well after the Haydock win: Ten Bob Tony has always thrived when fresh, he's toughened up physically, and after a gelding operation he's simply grown up. "Getting towards the finished article" is how Hicks described him — which is a quietly exciting thing to say about a horse already winning at the highest level. With five wins from fifteen races overall, and two wins from his last six, Ten Bob Tony heads into what looks like a golden spell of form at exactly the right moment in his career.