Aramram

What marks him out is a pair of clear calling cards. On wet or muddy ground, he becomes a different proposition entirely — he has won two of three races in such conditions (a 67% win rate), something that immediately tells you where to find him in a race card. More striking still is his dominance at Doncaster: two wins from three races at that track suggest it plays to his strengths in ways other courses do not. Trainer Richard Hannon has been deliberately sending him there, and the improvement has been unmistakable. Hannon reckons Aramram will take in "all the decent sprints this season" and believes a Group 1 — the highest level of British racing — is within reach, specifically eyeing the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot.

At Class 2 level (the top tier of regular racing), Aramram has won 2 of 15 races, a conversion rate of 13 percent that reflects how hard those races are. It also explains why his trainer backed him to step up: most horses never do, but this one has proved it can mix at that level and beat horses worth substantially more. His consistency is the other thing — Hannon calls it "faultless" — and that matters as much as raw speed in a horse's long-term career. Aramram raced just last week, so he remains very much in the mix.