Miss Alpilles

The turning point came at Haydock Park in July 2024, her first career win. But even then, the team drew the wrong conclusion — they assumed she needed wet, muddy ground to show her best. It took jockey Kieran Shoemark riding her at Ffos Las and reporting back that she actively hated soft ground to change their thinking entirely. That single piece of feedback changed everything. On fast, dry ground at Goodwood, then at Newmarket in September 2025, she finally started looking like the horse Walker had always believed was in there. That Newmarket win was a Class 1 race — one of the very top races in Britain — and it arrived at the end of a sequence that read 1-1-2-3-2 across her last five completed runs at that point. Remarkable form for a horse who had spent much of her career underperforming.

On normal ground, she wins 2 from 6 races — a 33% rate — which is genuinely impressive at this level. Her usual territory has been Class 4 races, the bread-and-butter middle tier of the sport, where she has won just 1 from 9. That Class 1 win at Newmarket, then, represents a significant step up in class, and it clearly didn't faze her. Walker's yard has been in exceptional form this season, sending out 80 winners, and he's now pointing Miss Alpilles at the Sagaro Stakes at Ascot — a prestigious staying race. His confidence is clear: she relaxes well, she stays, and she handles fast ground. For a horse who took this long to find herself, she may be only just getting started.