American Mike

His previous trainer Gordon Elliott put it plainly: American Mike is probably the horse that makes him scratch his head more than any other. He would disappoint, then come back with something brilliant. Elliott described him as having "a big engine on his day" — and the numbers back that up. At Navan, American Mike is nothing short of a specialist, winning 3 of his 6 races there. For a horse who runs at tracks across Ireland and Britain, finding one place where you can reliably draw the best out of a difficult character is genuinely valuable. Three wins from six at a single track is the kind of record that makes trainers plan their seasons around it.

He is now in the care of Olly Murphy, based in Wilmcote, Warwickshire — a yard that has sent out 146 winners this season alone, so this is a stable used to handling horses with something to offer. Murphy ran him at Newbury on his first start for the yard and put him through a wind operation afterwards, suggesting there was untapped ability worth investing in. Murphy has spoken about wanting to give him a longer trip and let him settle into a race rather than be asked to quicken sharply — a patient approach for a horse whose engine has always been there, just sometimes reluctant to fire.

His most recent form tells an interesting story: after a couple of disappointing runs, he bounced back to win at Perth just this week, his first win since joining Murphy's team. Jack Kennedy, who rides him more than anyone else, has won 3 of their 7 races together — that's a win rate of 43%, or close to winning almost every other time they're paired up. For a horse described as genuinely difficult to train, that kind of partnership with a single jockey matters. At Class 1 level he has yet to win from four attempts, so the question of whether he can step up to the very top tier remains open — but a nine-year-old winning this week suggests the story is far from finished.