King's Gambit

Both of those wins came at Newbury, the first in August 2023 and the second, more significantly, in May 2024 when it landed a Class 2 race — one of the better races you'll see outside the very top tier in Britain. Winning at that level tells you this is not a horse that simply picks up easy races; it has beaten genuinely good company on its best day. Harry Charlton trains the five-year-old from his yard at Beckhampton in Wiltshire, a team that has sent out 38 winners already this season, so there's clearly no shortage of talent on the premises.

The honest part of the picture, though, is that King's Gambit has spent most of its career racing at Class 1 — the very highest level — and has drawn a blank in all eight attempts at that grade. That's a tough ask for any horse, and it may explain why the overall record reads the way it does. It has placed nine times in 14 races, which means it has rarely been far away, but wins at the top table have stayed out of reach. Recent form reads 9-2-2-5-3-6, showing a couple of encouraging second-place finishes buried in there, but no win in the last six outings and nothing in the winner's enclosure for 24 months now.

King's Gambit raced just yesterday, so it is very much in active service, and the yard will no doubt be eyeing another tilt at Newbury at some point. That course record is too good to ignore. Whether the horse can rediscover the form that landed that Class 2 prize two years ago remains to be seen — but if you're picking a track where it stands the best chance of winning, Newbury has already answered that question twice.