Baileys Khelstar

The career highlight is a win at Ascot in May 2024, and that matters more than it might sound. Ascot is one of Britain's most prestigious venues, and getting a winner there puts Baileys Khelstar in a different category from the average horse at this level. That win was now 24 months ago, and it remains the most recent victory on the record, so the question hanging over the horse right now is whether it can rediscover that kind of form.

Recent runs have been mixed. Reading the last six results from most recent backwards — 4th, 2nd, 11th, 7th, 2nd, 1st — you can see a horse that finished on a high with a win, then went through a rough patch, but has since bounced back into the frame with two runner-up finishes. The 11th-place effort looks like the obvious blip, sandwiched between better efforts on either side.

Joe Fanning is the man most often in the saddle, and the numbers here are genuinely striking — 2 wins from 7 races together is a win rate of 29%, which means they win close to 1 in every 3 races as a partnership. That is well above the horse's overall average and suggests Fanning brings something out of this horse that others haven't quite managed.

The trainer is Charlie Johnston, operating out of Middleham Moor in North Yorkshire — one of the most productive yards in the country right now, having sent out 128 winners already this season. Baileys Khelstar raced just one day ago, so it is clearly in an active spell, and with Fanning in the plate and Johnston in the corner, the ingredients are there for another day in the sun.