Trust Sergei

Hanmer is refreshingly honest about the challenges. Trust Sergei has a habit of being uncooperative at the starting stalls, which in a sport where fractions of a second matter, is not a minor inconvenience. It also pulls hard — meaning it charges forward and wastes energy early — if given too much space in a race. It needs the pace of the race to suit it perfectly, which is a polite way of saying it can be a handful to manage. Despite all that, Hanmer clearly has a soft spot for the horse and sees enough ability to keep running it.

Its two wins came at Wolverhampton in April 2025 and Doncaster in May 2025, though that Doncaster victory is now a full year ago. At its most common level of competition — Class 5, which is the bread-and-butter tier of British racing — it has won 1 from 6, or about 1 in 6 races at that level, a 17% win rate that is actually respectable for a horse with its quirks. The yard itself has been in decent form, sending out 19 winners this season, so the operation clearly knows what it is doing.

After a 31-day break, the plan is to run Trust Sergei over five furlongs — a very short, sharp sprint. That is an interesting tactical call. A horse that pulls hard and burns energy early might actually be better suited to a race where going fast from the start is the whole point, rather than something to be avoided. It is a logical tweak, the kind of small adjustment that can unlock a horse that has been threatening to string a decent run together without quite managing it. Whether Trust Sergei cooperates is, as ever, another question entirely.