Expanded

That single win came at The Curragh in October 2024, but before it, on only his second career start, he finished a neck second in the Dewhurst Stakes — one of the most prestigious two-year-old races in Britain. To be that close to winning a race of that calibre on your second ever outing is the kind of performance that makes a yard sit up and take serious notice. O'Brien himself has said that last year simply didn't go smoothly — no single setback, just the stop-start frustration of things not falling into place.

Since that October win, Expanded has gone six races without winning again, which sounds underwhelming until you look more closely. His recent form reads 2-2-6-9-9-2 — two terrible finishes in the middle, but three second-place results bookending them, including a run at Newmarket where his jockey said he would have won with a cleaner passage early on. O'Brien was candid afterwards: Expanded was there for experience as much as a result, having raced just seven days earlier, and was sent to Newmarket because the yard has always liked him and knew he handles the track. He races best over seven furlongs to a mile, winning 1 from 3 races at those distances — a rate of roughly 1 in 3, far better than his overall record implies.

The plan now is a prep run before a tilt at the Lockinge Stakes, a top-level race at Newbury. For a horse whose overall win rate is just 1 in every 7 races, that might sound ambitious — but nothing about Expanded's profile is quite average. The yard sends out winners at an extraordinary rate, 144 this season alone, and O'Brien doesn't aim horses at the Lockinge for fun. His assistant described Expanded as a horse with loads of class who is still putting it all together. If he does, that Dewhurst run hints at what might be waiting on the other side.