Marco Botti

The headline number is 43 winners from 318 runners this season, a win rate of roughly 1 in every 7. That is a solid, professional return — but what makes it genuinely interesting is what has happened in the last two weeks. Three winners from just 8 runners, a conversion rate of 38% compared to his seasonal average of 14%. That is not luck; that is a yard hitting form at exactly the right moment, and it is the kind of run that sharp observers notice.

His most productive working relationship is with jockey Marco Ghiani, and the numbers speak clearly: 21 wins from 105 rides together, meaning Ghiani wins roughly 1 in every 5 times he climbs aboard a Botti runner. That is a meaningful partnership — the sort built on trust and understanding of how the horses in the yard are best ridden.

Wolverhampton is where Botti has quietly become a force to reckon with. Thirteen winners from 52 runners there is not a coincidence — it is a trainer who has worked out exactly how to prepare a horse for that track and returns to it again and again with horses ready to run their best. In racing, knowing your best venues and targeting them ruthlessly is a skill that separates the good from the very good.

The standout individual story is Lizzana — two wins from just three races together, a remarkable hit rate that suggests a horse and trainer in perfect sync. Add a top-level win at Doncaster as recently as September 2024, and this is a profile that combines consistency across the board with the ability to rise to the big occasions. Four years in, Botti is not building toward something — he is already there.