Bergerac

The highlights of his career have come at genuinely prestigious venues. His first win arrived at Newmarket in August 2022, and within a fortnight he had followed it up with a Class 2 success at York — one of Britain's most celebrated tracks. He then added another Class 2 win at Newcastle's all-weather track in June 2024. His most recent victory came at Hamilton Park in June 2025, where jockey Tom Eaves — his regular partner, having ridden him to 5 of those 6 wins across 29 races together — described a horse that dug deep when it mattered. Eaves admitted he had been nervous beforehand because Bergerac tends to show his best on faster ground, and the conditions that day gave him pause. In the end, the horse answered every question.

Trainer Kevin Ryan has been candid about how Bergerac has evolved. At one point he was competitive over five furlongs, but Ryan believes six furlongs is now the right distance for him at this stage of his career. It is the kind of fine-tuning that a trainer only bothers with when they genuinely rate a horse — and Ryan's yard has sent out 45 winners already this season, so he knows what a good one looks like. Bergerac is, by Eaves's own description, a yard favourite at home, which is a telling detail: the horses that the people around them like tend to keep delivering.

His recent form — finishing 19th, 12th, 23rd, 4th, 14th and 3rd in his last six outings — has been mixed, and he has not won since that Hamilton success eleven months ago. But he raced just yesterday, which means Kevin Ryan is still finding spots for him, still believing there is a performance worth waiting for. With a horse like Bergerac, that faith has been earned.