Eydon

The first came at Newmarket in April 2022, on just his second run on grass. Roger Varian, who trained him at the time, was remarkably candid afterwards: the three horses that finished ahead of him that day were all Group race winners, yet Eydon ran them close. That is a big deal. It is the racing equivalent of a newcomer pushing established champions to the wire. Varian was already talking about Derby entries and stepping up in distance.

Then came a long stretch of frustration. Balding, who took over the training, has been unusually open about what that period looked like from the inside: Eydon is a horse that has had "so many issues at home", and the same had apparently been true under his previous trainer. Talented horses with persistent physical problems are heartbreaking to manage — you can see the ability, but you can't get it onto the track consistently. The recent form figures of 2-11-4-1-2-2 hint at a horse that has been around the placed positions without quite threading everything together.

Which makes what happened at Newbury in May 2025 so satisfying. Balding described it as the first time in a long while they had managed a six-week spell without any setbacks. They targeted faster, drier ground, and Eydon responded by winning another Class 1. Balding called him "high class" and mentioned the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud — a prestigious race in France — as a possible next step. That is not the language you use about a horse you have given up on.

At his best distance of around a mile and a quarter, Eydon has won 1 from 4 races (25%), and across his eight Class 1 appearances he has won 2 of them — a 25% win rate at the very top level. For a horse with such an interrupted career, that is genuinely impressive. Balding's yard has sent out 202 winners this season alone, so this is a busy, successful operation — and yet Eydon clearly holds a special place in it.