Valiancy

Her career tells a clear story of a horse improving quickly. She broke her duck at Hamilton Park in June 2025, then stepped up to one of the top races in Britain — a Class 2 at Haydock Park — and won that too, just three months later. That matters. Class 2 races are near the summit of the British racing ladder, and winning one as a young, lightly raced three-year-old is the kind of performance that marks a horse out as something worth following. Interestingly, her record at the lower Class 4 level reads zero wins from three attempts — which sounds odd until you realise that the pattern suggests she actually performs better when the occasion demands more of her. Some horses need a big stage to bring out their best.

She is trained by William Haggas at Newmarket, one of the most successful yards in Britain right now. With 176 winners sent out already this season, this is a team that knows what they are doing with a horse like Valiancy — patient, selective, and clearly willing to pitch her into quality races when the moment feels right.

The one question mark is the gap since her last run. She has not raced for roughly six months, since that Haydock win in September. A break of that length is not unusual — horses are often given time to recover and develop — but it does mean she will be returning to action with something to prove. The freshness could work in her favour, or she might need a run to find her best form again. Given that her yard operates at such a high volume of winners, the fact that she has been given this amount of time suggests the team are being careful with her, which is usually a good sign rather than a bad one.

At three, with two wins already and a top-level victory on her CV, Valiancy looks like exactly the kind of horse worth keeping an eye on as the season unfolds.