The Best Way

That single win came at Newcastle in February 2025, and it arrived at Class 5 level, which is where he has done his best work. At that grade he has won 1 from 3 races — a 33% win rate, meaning he wins about 1 in every 3 times he lines up at that level. That's a genuinely solid number, and it tells you something useful: when the conditions are right and the competition is pitched correctly, he delivers.

His recent form makes for interesting reading too. After that Newcastle win, his next two runs produced an eighth and another eighth — disappointing by any measure — but he bounced back to finish third last time out, and then followed that with a win. The trajectory of his last six races (reading back from most recent: third, first, two poor runs, eighth, fourth) suggests a horse who can go from frustrating to exciting within a handful of outings.

He is trained by Nicky Richards at the Greystoke yard in Cumbria, one of the more respected jumping operations in the north of England. With 39 winners already sent out this season, Richards is clearly in fine form, and it's worth noting that he has had a long-term belief in this horse. Speaking back in October 2023, Richards pointed to The Best Way's early promise — a fourth-place finish in which the horse ran well despite being completely raw and inexperienced — and highlighted his pedigree, with a half-brother who finished third in the Champion Chase, one of the most prestigious jumping races in Britain. That's serious family background, and it explains why the yard has always believed there's a proper performance in him somewhere.

The Best Way raced just yesterday, so he is very much in the thick of things right now. At eight, with that pedigree behind him and a trainer who clearly knows how to place him, the question is whether he can kick on from his Newcastle win and prove that result was a sign of better things to come rather than a one-off.