After winning her only race as a two-year-old, Lady Carla won the Listed Oaks Trial Stakes at Lingfield Park on her three-year-old debut.

[1] Lady Carla's dam, Shirley Superstar, won one minor race and produced no other important winners,[2] but was a daughter of the Nassau Stakes runner-up Odeon.

[7] Six and a half months after her debut, Lady Carla made her first appearance as a three-year-old in the Oaks Trial Stakes over 11+1⁄2 furlongs at Lingfield Park.

[8] The field for the 1996 Epsom Oaks was not a strong one, with the Rockfel Stakes winner Bint Salsabil being the only one of the eleven fillies to have won at Group race level.

[11] Only five fillies appeared to oppose Lady Carla in the Irish Oaks at the Curragh in July, and she started at odds of 1/2 to maintain her unbeaten record.

The build-up to the race was marked by controversy, with Cecil angrily denying claims from the television pundit John McCririck that the filly had developed a serious respiratory condition.

Ridden by Cecil's new stable jockey Kieren Fallon, she was among the leaders until half way, but then weakened to finish ninth of the ten runners behind Predappio.

[17] In December 2003 at Tattersalls, the ten-year-old Lady Carla was auctioned at a dispersal of Wafic Saïd's bloodstock, after the Syrian businessman decided to give up his interest in horse racing.