Apolon De Charnie

At just four years old, this horse has a record of one win and two places from only two races, meaning it has finished in the top three every single time it has competed. A 50% win rate — winning 1 in every 2 races — is the kind of number that makes people pay attention, particularly when one of those wins came at a track that has broken the hearts of far more experienced horses than this.

Behind the horse stands Willie Mullins, the trainer based in Muine Bheag, County Carlow, whose yard has sent out 220 winners already this season alone. That is not a statistic to skim past — 220 winners in a season means Mullins is operating a racing machine of rare efficiency, and a horse chosen to run at Cheltenham from that stable has genuinely earned its place in the queue. When Mullins sends something to Cheltenham, it is there because the team believes in it.

Apolon De Charnie last raced just one day ago, so this is a horse very much in the middle of its story rather than at the end of one. Still only four, with a Cheltenham win already on the board and the full backing of one of the most powerful yards in the sport, the ceiling here is genuinely unknown — and that, for any racing fan, is one of the most exciting sentences you can write about a young horse.