A double was celebrated at Newbury on Saturday courtesy of Jumby & Suzy's Shoes who both gained their first successes of the season. Jumby had been knocking on the door in big handicaps this year with placings in the Wokingham at Royal Ascot and the Bunbury Cup at the Newmarket July Festival. With the door failing to open for him, Eve decided to revert back to deeper waters in the Group 2 Hungerford Stakes and thankfully this time all went to plan for Jumby and William Buick! He showed an impressive turn of foot to streak away from his rivals gaining a much deserved break-through success in Group company. For 3 seasons Jumby has performed with huge credit running at the best meetings and Saturday's win was his fifth win of his career. He was a 45,000gns purchase as a yearling at Tatts Book 2 sale back in 2019 and his career earnings have now succeeded £155,000 and fingers crossed he'll be adding to that total over the coming weeks! Jumby's owners Anthony Pye-Jeary & David Ian are huge supporters of Woodway and we are thrilled that they have such a star horse on their hands. Black silks with a red chevron, sleeves and cap were a familiar sight at the races for Anthony Pye-Jeary's horses over the year's when shared with Mel Smith and in the past decade What About Carlo & The Cheka carried those colours with great distinction. Anthony now shares his horses with David Ian who is a big West Ham fan hence the new Maroon and Light Blue chevron silks which have also proved to be very lucky in recent seasons and Greased Lightning & Sheer Rocks have also scored for them this year.
The statuesque Suzy's Shoes completed the double with great ease when sauntering to a 5 1/2 length victory in the valuable maiden later on the card under Charlie Bishop. She wasn't winning out of turn as she had shown promise as a 2yo and earlier on this season. Her owner Marc Middleton-Heath is also a big supporter of Woodway and the win was even sweeter as Suzy collected the £10k Great British Bonus to add to her winnings! She's a big rangy filly who has taken time to fill her frame and could be an exciting 4yo to follow next year.
We have now hit the 32 winner mark for the season and just over £430,000 in prize money - we look forward to celebrating some more great days ahead and adding to that tally in the coming months.