The Unibet Supports Safer Gambling Maiden Stakes over a mile at Kempton Park is not a race that any reader will readily identify, and be able to name the recent winners. However, it has become a race to keep an eye on, and the latest winner is certainly a horse to watch.

Divided in two of the years, Charlie Appleby has won the race seven times since 2021, with just Andrew Balding breaking the stranglehold last year when he won a division of the race with Quai De Bethune, and that gelding won at Royal Ascot afterwards. It should be noted that Charlie Appleby did not saddle a runner in this race!

Four of the first six winners trained by Appleby are worthy of special mention. The trainer’s winning streak started in 2021 with the subsequent Group 3 winner Highland Avenue. The 2023 edition of this maiden was captured by Measured Time, a Group 1 winner in the UAE and a Grade 1 winner in the US.

In 2023, one division of the race was used as the launch pad for the racing career of Notable Speech, and just over three months later he won the Group 1 2000 Guineas at Newmarket. Appleby won another division again in 2024 with Opera Ballo, a recent Group 1 winner at Meydan and about whom I have written elsewhere this week. What a record he has compiled, and it underlines the need to pay special attention to the horse that Appleby targeted for the race recently.

This year’s winner is the three-year-old colt Palladas, a chesnut son of Lope De Vega (Shamardal) out of the stakes-placed Isabella (Galileo). Last year this particular cross was responsible for the Group 1 Prix de Royallieu winner Consent. An exceptionally good-looking colt, bred by Jeffrey and Phoebe Hobby’s Brightwalton Bloodstock Limited, Palladas was sold in Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Sale through Barton Stud for 750,000gns.

Palladas is the fourth foal out of Isabella, a homebred of Sir Robert Ogden trained by David O’Meara. Credit to the trainer who sent that mare to the races 15 times, and got some valuable blacktype on her penultimate start. In fairness, Isabella’s career started promisingly when she built on her debut fourth by winning her next two starts. However, she didn’t go on as expected, but O’Meara threw a lot of darts at listed races, and eventually Isabella was third in one at Lingfield Park.

Isabella sold

As a seven-year-old, and with two foals on the ground, Isabella was sold for 225,000gns to Stroud Coleman and joined the Hobby’s broodmare band. Her first two foals, full-brothers, both won, the best of them being Maltese Falcon (Caravaggio). He took at Grade 3 in the US, at the same track where he was beaten a head in the Grade 2 Del Mar Derby.

The foal Isabella was carrying when she was purchased, Isadorable (Mastercraftsman), has not raced and appears to be retained by Brightwalton, and Palladas was next. Charlie Johnston has Isabella’s most recent offspring, the two-year-old colt Helvellyn (Pinatubo) in training, having purchased him for 55,000gns last October. In 2025, Isabella was covered by both Lope De Vega and Blue Point (Shamardal), no doubt trying to get another Palladas.

Palladas comes from a solid, successful female line, and one where repeat matings have yielded success. Isabella is one of seven winners from her dam Song Of My Heart (Footstepsinthesand), saddled by David Wachman to win the Listed Blenheim Stakes at the Curragh as a juvenile. Three of her winners earned blacktype and all were sired by Galileo (Sadler’s Wells). Go back one more generation, and Palladas’s third dam Catch The Moon (Peintre Celebre) had a perfect record of seven winners from the same number of runners, the best being the Group 3 winner Lightning Moon (Shamardal).

Basilica hits the heights down under

READERS will be well aware of the fine start made last year by St Mark’s Basilica (Siyouni) with his first runners, among them the unbeaten Group 1 winner Diamond Necklace, Group 2 winner Aylin, stakes winner Thesecretadversary, and a trio of pattern-placed winners.

Now, with two runners from his first southern hemisphere crop, he is responsible for the unbeaten colt Aristopolos, who showed that he has continued to improve with success in the Listed Kevin Sharkie Elwick Stakes over five and a half-furlongs at Hobart. Trained by John Blacker, the colt was an easy winner at his first two starts at Launceston in December and in the first week of January. Aristopolos has now won A$162,350.

An A$60,000 Magic Millions Tasmania purchase by his trainer from their yearling draft, Aristopolos was bred by Armidale Stud and is the second foal to race and second winner from the stakes-placed Flying Krupt, a daughter of Krupt (Flying Spur). Flying Krupt won five races at up to seven furlongs and was runner-up in a listed race.

Flying Krupt is one of just five offspring of Morethanapenny (More Than Ready). She did not win, but placed a couple of times, and all of her progeny raced. Four of them won, including a full-sister to Flying Kruft, and the odd one out was placed. Aristopolos is just the second stakes winner in the first four generations of his family, the other being The Big Goodbye (Host).

An 11-time winner, twice at listed level, and Group 3-placed in Australia, The Big Goodbye is a half-brother to Morethanapenny, and one of six winners from Penny Opera (Danasinga), a New Zealand-bred five-time winner. Among Penny Opera’s offspring is Special King (Magnus), a smart runner in Singapore where he won eight times and was stakes-placed at Kranji.

With distinction

Indeed, it is a feature of this family that it spread its wings a little and competed with distinction outside New Zealand and Australia. The fourth dam of Aristopolos, La Cent (Centaine), had eight winners who were successful in New Zealand and Australia, as well as Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau and Malaysia. Three of them earned internationally-recognised blacktype.

Perfect Pins (Pins) was third to the Group 1 Golden Shaheen winner Rocket Man in what was Singapore’s signature race, the Group 1 Kris Flyer International Sprint. Our Reilly (O’Reilly) won 13 races in Macau, and three times was runner-up in listed contests, while Penny Opera’s full-brother Zinly (Danasinga), a winner nine times in Singapore, was listed-placed a few times in that country.

Well represented

Aristopolos is now the fourth stakes-winner worldwide for St Mark’s Basilica, who had yearlings sell for up to A$330,000 at Magic Millions and will be well represented at all the upcoming sales.

He was well-supported in Australia and New Zealand when he shuttled after his first season in Ireland. He covered 159, 116 and 107 mares during his first three seasons in Australia. Among those who showed faith in him was Arrowfield, and their first offerings included a colt who was purchased by Coolmore for A$700,000 at Magic Millions, the best-priced yearling in his first southern hemisphere crop.