How to Check If an Overseas Horse Can Handle a Fast Pace

Recorded October 2025 for 2025 The Everest Tips & Best Bets. Any figures mentioned are from that time.

Before I rate an overseas horse against local form, I want to answer one question. Has it already been tested against the kind of tempo I expect in the race I am rating? Ratings alone do not tell me that. A horse can post big numbers overseas in races that were run at a modest early speed, then walk into a high pressure sprint here and find out what real pressure feels like. So I go back through the form and look for the run where it had to cope, and I watch it properly rather than just reading the figure.

Find the run that matches the expected tempo

With Ka Ying Rising, the timing worked out well. His last start happened to be the fastest early pace race he had been in. There were four or five genuine leaders in it, so the tempo was genuine from the jump. That is close to how I expect the race I am rating to be run, which makes it a fair test rather than a guess. If I could not find a run like that in his form, I would still have a doubt sitting there, and that doubt would have to be priced into my rating one way or another.

What the vision showed

He did not jump particularly well. He came out around midfield, fifth or sixth. Then look at the early speed he showed to punch forward from barrier five or six, and we saw the same thing in his trial. His rider could have led on him and chose to sit second instead, which is what he normally does. He is not a horse that leads often. He sits second or third, or stalks just behind them, and I think that is how he will be ridden again.

Then there is the acceleration in the straight, and this is over 1,200 metres against top quality horses in a Group One. He was strong through the line. His rider sat up on him at the 100 and he could have won by a lot further, which is why his last 200 sectional does not look as sharp as the run actually was. There was a bit of rain around that day too.

Where the ratings sit

The overall rating for that run came out at 108, and given the way he was eased down late, I would call it a 110. His peak rating is 116.8, which is genuinely elite. Nothing here since Black Caviar has been in that range. But the part that mattered most to me was not the number. It was that he produced it off a fast pace. A lot of his other races were not run at extreme tempo, and that was the worry for me, that he was heading into a much higher pressure race than anything he had faced. On that evidence, he can handle the pressure. That is a big tick.

If you are looking at an imported horse, go and find the run in its form where the tempo was tested, and watch it rather than read it. If the run is not there, treat the rating with more caution than you otherwise would.

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More from Kingsley

• Why Long Shots Can Show a Better Return With Fewer Winners
• How a Cruising and Acceleration Rating Works in Race Analysis
• Why a Fast Last 200 Can Be Completely Misleading

From the full video: 2025 The Everest Tips & Best Bets

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