Washington Heights

Trained by Kevin Ryan at Hambleton in North Yorkshire — a yard that has sent out 45 winners already this season — Washington Heights has been pointed squarely at the top level throughout his career. He has run 10 races at Class 1, the highest grade in Britain, winning 2 of them. That's a 20% win rate at a level where most horses never win at all. His first big-race success came at Newmarket in April 2024, in the Abernant Stakes, one of the early-season sprint prizes that carries real prestige. Ryan said afterwards that the horse had done well over the winter and simply repaid the faith the team had placed in him — Tom Eaves, who partners him most often, rode him from the front and got the job done.

What makes Washington Heights particularly interesting is his love of fast, dry ground. On those conditions he has won 3 from 12 races — 25%, or roughly 1 in 4. That's a meaningful edge. Ryan noted that a run at York felt slightly unlucky when the ground came up slower than ideal, suggesting the horse is capable of even more when conditions suit. And then came York again, on 12 July 2025, where he finally delivered on that promise with another Class 1 victory. Two top-level wins in a career is a genuine achievement — that puts him in rare company among British sprinters.

His recent form reads 8-1-8-12-12-1: two heavy defeats sandwiching a win at Carlisle in May 2026, and before that a sequence that raised questions about consistency. But the team has always believed in him, and Ryan has spoken about the horse's honesty and toughness — qualities that matter more than talent alone at the top level. He was described after a win in Sweden as so tough and genuine that he deserved a day in the sun, and he has had more than one of those. Having raced just a day ago, he is very much still in the thick of it.