Opera Ballo

What makes that figure even more striking is where these wins have come. Opera Ballo has competed regularly at Class 1 level — the very top tier of British racing — and has won 2 of those 4 races, a 50% win rate against the very best. Those victories include a win at Sandown Park in May 2025 and another at Newmarket's July course in July 2025, one of the most prestigious venues in the country. Winning at that level once is an achievement. Doing it twice before your fourth birthday suggests this is a horse still finding its ceiling.

The partnership with William Buick has become one of the most reliable combinations in racing. The pair have raced together 7 times and won 5 of them — that is better than 7 in every 10 races, a staggering hit rate for a top-level jockey riding at the highest end of the sport. Buick is one of the best in the business, but even he needs a horse underneath him worth riding. Opera Ballo clearly gives him exactly that.

Behind the horse is Charlie Appleby's operation in Newmarket, one of the most formidable yards in Britain. With 121 winners already sent out this season, Appleby's team have the depth and quality to place horses carefully and ambitiously — and Opera Ballo, with its record, is clearly near the top of that list.

The recent form reads 3-1-–-1-2-1, with the horse last racing just a day ago and last winning at Sandown Park eight weeks back. There is no sign of a horse slowing down. At four years old, with six wins already banked and a taste for the biggest occasions, Opera Ballo looks like a horse very much in the middle of its story, not at the end of it.