Starakova

The win came at Wolverhampton on 27 April 2026, and the distance tells you something useful. Over seven furlongs to a mile, Starakova has won 1 of her 4 races — a 25% win rate that is dramatically better than her record elsewhere. That is the difference between a horse who looks ordinary and one who simply needed the right conditions to show what she can do. Find the right trip, and the picture changes completely.

Her recent run of form — finishing eighth and ninth in her two races before the Wolverhampton win — makes that victory feel all the more satisfying. Horses can drift quietly through a sequence of unspectacular finishes and then suddenly click; Starakova appears to have done exactly that. One race ago she was a single-figure finisher going nowhere in particular. Now she has a winner's certificate.

She is trained by Warren Greatrex at Upper Lambourn in Berkshire, a yard that has sent out 50 winners already this season. That is a serious training operation, and the fact that Greatrex has kept faith with Starakova through a slow start speaks to the belief the team has in her. Upper Lambourn is one of the great centres of British racing, and horses that come out of there tend to be well-prepared. The infrastructure around her is solid.

What happens next is the interesting question. She has typically competed at Class 5, the lower end of the racing ladder, without winning at that level — which makes the Wolverhampton success all the more curious and worth watching. At three years old, she has room to develop, and now that she knows how to win, the hope from the team will be that she can do it again.