Byzantium

Those two wins tell a story worth following. The first came at Warwick in early June 2025, and the second followed at Newton Abbot just three weeks later. Two wins in quick succession like that rarely happen by accident — it usually means a horse has found its rhythm and figured something out. In Byzantium's case, Nicholls puts it plainly: the horse has been a revelation since finally learning to settle. For years, being too keen and fresh for his own good was working against him. Once that clicked, the results followed fast.

The Newton Abbot win did come at a cost, though. Byzantium cut himself that day, spent two months on the sidelines recovering, and has been playing catch-up ever since. That explains the quieter end to the season — a run at Ascot just yesterday, finishing sixth, which Nicholls says was always more about blowing away the cobwebs than chasing a result. Freshness after a break is a known issue with this horse, and a racecourse run was the straightforward fix.

The broader record — 2 wins and 4 places from 11 races, or roughly 1 in every 5-and-a-half races — is solid without being spectacular for a horse competing mainly at Class 4 level, where he has won just 1 from 7. But context matters: that record includes time lost to injury and a horse still working out how to race. His most trusted partner in the saddle is Jay Tidball, who has won 2 of the 5 races they have ridden together — a remarkable 40%, or 2 in every 5, which is the kind of number that makes a trainer keep coming back to the same combination.

Nicholls has flagged that a step up in distance is coming next time out, which suggests he believes the best of Byzantium is still ahead. For a horse who only recently figured out how to race properly, that is not an idle remark.