Good Karma

The distance sweet spot is clear: all three wins have come over 7 furlongs to a mile, where Good Karma has won 3 from 19 races — that is 16%, or just under 1 in every 6 attempts. That is meaningfully better than its overall record, and it suggests a horse that is genuinely well-suited to a specific job. Strip it of that optimum trip and the numbers fall away sharply.

The most recent win came at Thirsk on 15 July 2025, which is now nine months ago. Since then, Good Karma has gone six races without winning, with finishes of 5-5-3-2-7-4 (reading back from most recent). The second and third places show the horse is still involved, but converting that into a win has proved elusive. Regular jockey Sean Kirrane has ridden it eight times without a win together — though that is as much about the level of racing as anything else.

Good Karma is trained by John David Riches at his yard in Pilling, Lancashire, and runs in the colours of Michael Buckley — the same owner whose horse Constitution Hill won the Champion Hurdle. That is a significant piece of context. Buckley is clearly not a casual owner, and Riches speaks of him warmly as his first ever patron and a close friend. The yard has sent out 5 winners this season, so it is in decent form. That this horse carries Buckley's colours alongside a Champion Hurdle winner says something about the personal loyalty involved, even if Good Karma is competing at a very different level — mostly Class 6 races, which are the bread-and-butter contests at the lower end of the sport.

At six years old and with 31 races behind it, Good Karma is not likely to suddenly transform into something it has not been. But it is a horse that keeps running, keeps placing, and clearly means something to the people around it. Sometimes that is its own kind of good karma.