Veblen Good

The four-year-old has won 2 races from 8, placing in 5 of the others — that is a horse that barely runs a bad race, finishing in the top three in 7 of its 8 outings. The first win came on debut for the yard at Wolverhampton in October 2024, which O'Meara has described as a nice surprise, though one suspects he had a quiet suspicion it was coming given how much he liked the horse as a yearling. The second arrived at Pontefract at the end of April 2026 over six furlongs — a course that suits a horse with genuine pace. The recent form reading 3-1-7-4-2 going back from that Pontefract win suggests a horse that finds the frame almost automatically, even when it does not win.

What makes Veblen Good worth watching right now is that O'Meara believes there may be more to find. He has floated the idea that the horse could get seven furlongs, which would open up new options and, potentially, better races. He has also entered the horse in the Wokingham, one of the most competitive sprint handicaps at Royal Ascot — a race that would represent a significant step up in class. O'Meara is realistic that getting a run depends on winning again first, but the fact he made the entry at all says something about how highly the yard rates this horse.

O'Meara's operation at Upper Helmsley is in excellent shape this season — 101 winners and counting — so Veblen Good is arriving from a yard firing on all cylinders. Active just one day ago, this is a horse right in the middle of a campaign, with the yard clearly mapping out an ambitious summer. A horse that wins 1 in every 4 races and places in most of the rest, trained by someone who thinks it has unfinished business at a higher level — that is a profile worth keeping an eye on.