Jumby

The numbers do need context though. Across 36 races, Jumby wins roughly 1 in every 12, but when the ground is fast and dry, that jumps to 3 wins from 15 races — 1 in every 5. That is a completely different horse. Trainer Eve Johnson Houghton, whose yard in Blewbury, Oxfordshire has sent out 42 winners already this season, has been clear about it: Jumby wants dry ground, and he wants seven furlongs. The problem is that combination is surprisingly hard to find, which explains why a horse this talented has only three wins to his name after 36 races.

Seven furlongs at the right track, on fast ground, is when Jumby becomes genuinely dangerous. Johnson Houghton has noted that Ascot's stiff seven furlongs doesn't quite suit him — the track asks questions his stride doesn't quite answer — but the Hungerford at Newbury is a race he has made his own, having won it in 2022 and finished third the following year, beaten by a nose and a short head. That is heartbreakingly close. The horse that ran those races is clearly still there.

He has not won in his last six outings, with his most recent run coming just yesterday, and his last victory was at Haydock three years ago now. His regular jockey Charles Bishop has ridden him 14 times and won once together. At his age, the wins may become harder to find, and Johnson Houghton herself has acknowledged he is carrying a bit too much weight in the handicap rankings for an eight-year-old. But Jumby has 12 places from those 36 races, keeps running honest races, and the trainer is not close to giving up on him — with the Hungerford potentially on the horizon, and the right ground forecast, there may still be one more big day left in him.