In 2006 he won two Group One races- the Nunthorpe Stakes at York and the Sprint Cup at Haydock- and was named European Champion Sprinter at the Cartier Racing Awards.
Reverence, a chestnut gelding with a narrow white stripe, was bred by his owners, the husband-and-wife team of Gary and Lesley Middlebrook at their Wood Farm Stud near Windermere in Cumbria.
[4] The Middlebrooks decided to send him to the small yard of Eric Alston at Longton, Lancashire as they believed that his flat training gallops would ease the horse's recovery.
In being beaten less than a length over six furlongs Reverence's performance was rather better than it first appeared: the winner Les Arcs went on to win the Golden Jubilee Stakes and the July Cup that summer.
Reverence reappeared in April to beat the veteran Bahamian Pirate in a minor stakes race on soft ground at Nottingham.
[9] At Newmarket in May Reverence ran in his first Group Race and showed promise in finishing fourth of twenty-two runners behind Dandy Man in the Palace House Stakes.
Reverence went clear approaching the final furlong and ran on well on the soft ground to win by one and a quarter lengths from The Trader, with Les Arcs unplaced.
"[5] "Torrential rain" meant that the ground had turned even softer two weeks later, when Reverence attempted to win over six furlongs for the first time in the Betfred-sponsored Sprint Cup at his local course, Haydock Park.
[13] The Lancashire crowd gave the local horse an enthusiastic reception[14] and Alston, winning the biggest race of his twenty-five-year career, was delighted, saying "The Nunthorpe was fantastic, but this is even better.
In this respect, his later career resembled those of two other Northern-trained Champion sprinters Continent and Somnus He still retained some ability however, and in 2009, at the age of eight, he recorded a final Group Race win in the Flying Five Stakes at The Curragh.
[21] In the 2006 World Thoroughbred Racehorse Rankings he was rated on 117, making him the third best sprinter to have raced in Europe that year, behind the Australian-trained Takeover Target (120) and Les Arcs (118).