Talis Evolvere

His record on normal ground is where the story really starts to take shape. Four wins from 14 races on standard conditions works out at 29% — winning more than 1 in every 4 times — which is a genuinely impressive return at this level. He is not a horse grinding away on the fringes; he competes regularly in Class 2 company, and his two wins at that level, at Newcastle and Chelmsford on the all-weather surfaces, show he belongs there. The Newcastle win in March 2024 was particularly telling — a big mile race on Good Friday that Hannon was eyeing up again for him this spring, before a minor health setback ruled it out.

That setback gives a sense of how carefully this horse is managed. Hannon scoped him ahead of the 2025 Good Friday race, found he was not quite right, and shelved the plan. It is the kind of patient handling that characterises a yard that has sent out 118 winners this season alone. The trainer's view is straightforward: Talis Evolvere is coming down to a handicap mark where he should be winning again, and the target is races like the Royal Ascot Hunt Cup — as prestigious as it gets for this type of horse.

His most recent win came at Southwell in January 2026, and his last six runs read 11-8-2-5-2-1 — erratic on the surface, but with two runner-up finishes and a win in there, it is the form of a horse hovering on the edge of another big moment. Regular jockey Joe Leavy has ridden him ten times for a single win together, but with the horse reportedly back in form and dropping to a more winnable mark, that partnership may be about to look a lot more productive.