Ooh Betty

Clarke trains out of Mosterton in Dorset, and his yard has been in fine form this season — 13 winners and counting. He and jockey Ben Jones have built something of a partnership around Ooh Betty specifically. Jones has ridden her in 17 of her 26 races and won 6 of them, a win rate of 35%, or just over 1 in every 3 rides together. That kind of continuity matters: a jockey who knows a horse's quirks, how she travels, when to ask.

The career peaked, at least so far, on 17 January 2026, when Ooh Betty won a Class 1 race at Ascot — one of the top races in the country. Clarke described it afterwards as feeling like winning the Gold Cup. That might sound like hyperbole, but it wasn't. The yard had been agonisingly close for a long time: placed in £100,000 races, beaten a neck in the Scottish Champion Hurdle, third in a Grade 2 at Newbury, second to Golden Ace in another big race. Winning at that level, after all those near misses, genuinely meant something. She had previously won a Class 2 at Lingfield in January 2024, so the quality was always there — it just took a while for the biggest prize to arrive.

At eight years old and 15.1 hands — small for a racehorse — Ooh Betty is described by Clarke as "all speed." She was active just one day ago and the plan, in broad terms, is to target the Scottish Champion Hurdle at Ayr, a race she has already run well in, with the Swinton potentially rounding off her season. A wind operation last summer appears to have helped, but the ground remains the controlling factor. When the sun dries things out, she is right in the mix at the very top level.