Rapid rise of Ebor favourite King's Advice delights and surprises connections

Sky Bet Ebor favourite King's Advice will have no trouble handling York according to assistant trainer Charlie Johnston as he marvelled at the Goodwood winner's incredible rate of improvement.

The five-year-old is as short as 7-1 for the £1 million handicap, having won eight of his nine runs since joining Mark Johnston's yard, a run that has seen him improve his Racing Post Rating to 114 for his Summer Handicap success on Saturday, having posted 79 for his stable debut victory at Lingfield in March.

During that period he has shown plenty of versatility, with all eight victories coming at different tracks, and Johnston believes the yard's star stayer will have no issue coping with the course when he makes his first appearance on the Knavesmire.

He said on Sunday: "Obviously with something like the Ebor you need a degree of luck, but I don’t think King's Advice will have any problems handling the track. This year he's won left-handed and right-handed, on the all-weather, quick ground and ground that’s been on the slow side.

"His season has been unbelievable. None of us is going to sit here and say we expected anything like it when the horse entered the yard and went to Lingfield first time off 71, and now he'll be running in the Ebor off a 41lb higher mark."

All eight of the son of Frankel's victories have come when Joe Fanning has been in the saddle, and Johnston paid tribute to their unstoppable partnership.

Mark Johnston: had 50 winners in JulyCredit: Alan Crowhurst / Getty Images

"He’s a horse with a fantastic attitude and appetite for racing, and him and Joe have built up an incredibly special relationship," he said. "They work together so well and hopefully it can continue."

With Mark Johnston scooping the top trainer prize at Glorious Goodwood with six wins, it was a nice end to what had been a difficult start to the week for the stable.

With flooding affecting much of North Yorkshire, the Middleham-based yard was partly under water, including the all-weather gallop. However, Johnston noted that it was not as severe as first feared.

He said: "On the whole things aren’t as bad as we heard. We saw the footage of the all-weather gallop under water and feared the vast majority of it might get washed away, but thankfully when the water subsided there wasn’t a huge amount of surface lost and we can get the bulk of things back into place. It will largely be business as usual."

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