Yashin

Trained by Michael Bell at Newmarket — a yard that has sent out 45 winners already this season — Yashin does his best work on normal ground. On a decent surface he has won 3 of his 6 races, a 50% win rate that tells you the ground is not a minor detail with this horse but a firm condition. The team have been consistent about it: he simply will not be risked on wet or muddy ground. That selectiveness explains some of his quieter results, including a run of blanks at Class 2 level where he has yet to win from 6 attempts.

His partnership with Shane Foley is one of the more productive in his career — the two have won 3 times from 11 races together, a win rate of just over 27%, or roughly 1 in every 4 rides. Foley clearly gets something out of him. So too does Leopardstown, where Yashin has won 2 of his 6 races and where his first career win came back in May 2022. Some horses just like the shape of a track, and for Yashin that left-handed loop in Dublin seems to suit his rhythm.

What makes this horse genuinely interesting right now is the scale of what is being discussed after Ascot. His assistant trainer Nick Bell floated both the Gold Cup and the Melbourne Cup as possibilities — and neither is said lightly. The Gold Cup at Royal Ascot would mean taking on Kyprios, a horse who has beaten Yashin before, and stretching his distance further than he has ever gone. The Melbourne Cup is the other side of the world. For a horse who his own team admit was not fully wound up when he beat Coltrane at Ascot, and who his jockey said had no right to pick up and win the way he did at Leopardstown, that combination of undercooked form and top-level results is the most intriguing thing about him. He keeps producing more than the circumstances suggest he should.