Five Years. 100 Winners. Unlimited Ambition - By Cornelius Lysaght
What a lot has been achieved by Opulence Thoroughbreds in barely five years of operating.
And, as Addison Grey brought up the notable milestone of the maiden century, it was clear to everyone that – just like William Buick when he hit the 2,000-mark at the July Festival, and then immediately rode two more winners – Opulence wasn’t planning to hang around either.
Within three or four days, Silver Chamber’s trip north from William Haggas HQ to Ripon made it 101, signalling the start of the gallop towards the next landmark.
However, while Addison Grey’s Salisbury romp under Saffie Osborne came at 11/1 ON, the odds about breaking into the world of shared racehorse ownership have never been anywhere near so short.
A market place that is completely saturated today was already becoming competitive in June 2020 when the Stuart Williams-trained Album, ridden by Sean Levey, became the first runner for the navy blue and cream silks, with their gold braids and tassel, in a handicap at Newmarket.
But, just as now, no one at Opulence was sitting still: it was that October that Album and the unraced two-year-old Beau Jardine provided clients with their first visits to the winners’ enclosure, respectively at Windsor and then back on Newmarket’s Rowley Mile.
Hurdle number one was cleared, and the journey to becoming the fastest growing syndication company was underway.
The idea behind the catchy, lifestyle-orientated name, eye-catching colours and a mission statement that majored on the exclusivity of the experience and service has always been that people would take notice, and that certainly worked, as did the high profile trainers soon on board.
Alongside Stuart Williams, in came Roger Varian and Andrew Balding, soon followed by Ed Walker, William Haggas, Jack Channon, the Quinns and more – to the outside world, these new kids on the block definitely meant business.
But ultimately you can have all the great names, distinctive silks, worthy intentions and leading trainers, but if the horses don’t perform, you are not going to get very far.
Of course, not everything has gone right, but from their offices amongst other movers and shakers in London’s Canary Wharf, George Gill and the team have overseen an impressively consistent progress.
That’s been demonstrated by Listed-level success; regular runners at festivals like Royal Ascot and Glorious Goodwood (including a Stewards’ Cup favourite); expansion overseas; some big-money sales; and one (Royal Fixation), maybe two (Sukanya as well), of the best juvenile fillies in the country, with hopefully more to come – don’t miss Lady Consensus when she runs for the Varian stable.
George professes to being “over the moon that we’ve made the hundred in about five years –it’s where I hoped that we might be, but equally I knew it wouldn’t be easy”, though it was clear his infectious mix of ambition and realism was not entirely expecting one aspect.
He went on: “I didn’t think that we’d get to the level of quality that we’ve got to this year from about twenty five horses in training; from a quality perspective we’re much further along than where I thought [we’d be].”
Talking of which…immediate thoughts are fixed on the hotly-anticipated appearance in York’s Group Two Lowther Stakes of Royal Fixation, trained by Ed Walker (who’s himself going for successive wins in the race), with the filly strongly-fancied to further enhance her Classic credentials.
A good judge amongst the brokers at bookmakers Fitzdares told me their pre-Lowther 25/1 for the 1000 Guineas is “very fair”, shorthand for “could easily be too bloody big”.
After York, it’s onto the next crop of yearling sales where Opulence’s successful purchasing strategy – including an AI generated long-list of horses with suitable pedigrees being gradually whittled down by human input – will again be employed as next year’s headline makers are hunted down.
As I said, no one at Opulence is sitting on their (growing) laurels en route to the next level.