A look back at 2024 by Cornelius Lysaght
As the TV advert says, “horse racing is changing…” as shared ownership comes more and more to the fore, and those enjoying the ride with Opulence Thoroughbreds know that it continues to change for the better.
2024 saw more winners in the distinctive gold-braided silks than ever before, a raised strike-rate and, crucially, more prizemoney banked.
Kempton’s Polytrack course proved the most fruitful with highlights including Phoenix Passion (Saffie Osborne) and later Devoirs Choice (Tom Marquand) completing notable sequences there, and Flavour Maker (Ray Dawson) unexpectedly taking a lead role in the controversial finish to a handicap in August when getting up to dead-heat.
The stewards deemed Callum Shepherd, on the joint-winner, to have stopped riding prematurely – thereby forfeiting outright success – and banned him for eighteen days, a suspension that was overturned on appeal after Shepherd, the son of lawyers, successfully put forward the novel argument that he did keep going but that his “style just fell apart…it’s awful, I look a mess.”
Away from Kempton, Opulence threw its net far and wide, striking gold at Catterick, Haydock, Newcastle, Redcar, Southwell and Wolverhampton, as well as closer to base, at Ascot, Chelmsford, Goodwood, Newbury, Newmarket, Sandown and Windsor.
Funnily enough, at Ascot in July, the owners of Kodi Lion had the aforementioned Shepherd on their side this time (once he had found racing room), before the jockey appeared on the winners’ podium for photographs resembling an extra from a war film, battered, bruised and with a bloodied head-bandage, after a crunching fall the day before.
When we think of falls, for obvious reasons we mainly think of national hunt riders, but, although less frequent on the flat, such incidents are regularly more serious as everything happens so much faster and more unexpectedly.
On a happier note, what was extra striking about the year was that it seemed that no racing festival went by without some competitive Opulence representation – at Royal Ascot, Chester, Glorious Goodwood (where Purosangue was Stewards’ Cup favourite), on Newmarket’s Guineas Weekend and on the hallowed York turf at the Ebor Meeting, plus more.
Everyone will have a favourite moment from 2024, but mine came on a sun-drenched August visit to Redcar, made all the more glorious by Devoirs Choice coming good for his patient set of owners.
During one of the year’s many stable visit opportunities, back in February to Ed Walker’s magnificent HQ in Upper Lambourn, the trainer had spoken of his ongoing high hopes for the good-looking and nicely-bred three-year-old even though at that stage, frustratingly for all, the horse still hadn’t set foot on a racecourse.
That came a couple of weeks later but, having shaped up pretty well in three runs to qualify for handicaps, he arrived at the north-east of England track – more fun than its location, adjacent to two cemeteries, might suggest – still winless after seven races (despite some near-misses) and having undergone a gelding operation.
However, dropped back in distance after previously finishing beaten-favourite at Newmarket and ridden by Andrew Balding’s then-apprentice (now fully-fledged) Callum Hutchinson, he stormed home for a narrow victory – to the ecstatic delight of the owners present: what a joy to witness, and proof that almost nothing compares to seeing your colours in the winners’ enclosure.
And Devoirs Choice has not looked back since, winning twice more, at Newbury before Kempton, and now due to race on under the tutelage of Bhupat Seemar in Dubai.
So onto the new year, when as well as the horses becoming a year older, winning totals are, of course, set back to zero; however, what a lot there is to look forward to for Opulence Thoroughbreds in 2025 with a strong squad being prepared in Britain, of course, but also, as the operation goes global, at the Seemar stable in Dubai and in Australia with Annabel Neasham and team.
It should be another blast – best of luck to all.
