Samuel Spade

His record on normal ground tells the most flattering version of his story: 4 wins from 13 races at 31%, or nearly 1 in every 3. That is a genuinely impressive conversion rate, and it suggests the surface matters enormously with this horse. Even more striking is his record at Huntingdon, where he has won 2 of just 3 races. Dominating a particular track that reliably is not luck — horses that win two-thirds of their races somewhere have found a circuit that suits them almost perfectly, whether that is the shape of the bends, the way the ground drains, or simply the trip and the pace the races are run at. Jockey Beau Morgan noticed something similar after one of those Huntingdon wins, saying that once Samuel Spade gets into a rhythm, he is a genuinely decent horse — the trick is getting him there.

The highlight of his career came at Kempton on 27 December 2022, a Class 2 race — meaning one of the better contests you will find in Britain. Winning at that level over Christmas, one of the busiest and most competitive periods of the jumping season, shows real quality. More recently, his win at Ascot in February 2025 was described by Pauling as a performance where regular rider Ben Jones rode with real craft, finding gaps and conserving energy before the horse finished strongly. Yet that was 16 months ago, and his last six runs have produced finishing positions of 7, 9, 7, 8, 8, and 4 — competitive enough, but not winning.

Pauling is not giving up on him. After a recent run at Newbury he described it as a useful piece of work that would have sharpened the horse up, with a staying race at Haydock the likely next target. At seven, Samuel Spade is in his prime years, and Pauling's yard has sent out 91 winners this season alone — this is a team that knows how to get horses to the right races. When the ground is right and the race sets up for him, he remains a horse worth watching.