Old Is Gold

The breakthrough came at Beverley on 24 May 2025, where Old Is Gold won a Class 2 race — one of the top-tier contests in British racing. For a young horse to win at that level first time out of the blocks is genuinely significant; plenty of horses spend entire careers without troubling that grade. What makes it more striking is that Beverley is also where Old Is Gold recorded all three of its Class 2 appearances, winning one from three at that level, a rate of 33%, or roughly 1 in 3. That kind of record at a specific track sometimes hints at something deeper — a horse that simply takes to a particular course, its shape, its ground, or the way a race tends to unfold there.

The recent form figures — 6-12-3-8-1-3 — tell the story of a horse that blows hot and cold. Those double-digit finishes suggest there are days when everything clicks and days when it absolutely doesn't. But the third-place finishes on either side of the big win show there is consistency lurking in there somewhere. Raced just one day ago, Old Is Gold is very much in the middle of its season, and the question now is whether it can reproduce that Class 2 form or whether Beverley remains its one reliable stage.

Behind the horse is Andrew Balding's yard at Kingsclere in Hampshire, one of the most productive training operations in Britain right now — 204 winners this season alone, which is the kind of output that reflects a deep team with the infrastructure to place horses well. When a yard is firing at that volume, individual horses tend to be pointed at races they can genuinely win rather than make up the numbers. The fact that Old Is Gold has been kept at Class 2 level suggests Balding sees real ability here, even if the form book has been inconsistent. There is enough in this horse's record to make its next run worth watching.