Shady Bay

The wider career picture is solid rather than spectacular. Four wins and nine placed efforts from 21 races tells you this is a horse that consistently shows up and competes — it has finished in the top three nearly two-thirds of the time — without quite dominating its rivals. It operates mainly in Class 5 company, which is the bread-and-butter level of British racing, and has won 2 of those 13 races at that grade. That 15% win rate there is respectable, though the Nottingham numbers suggest there might be slightly more to this horse than the overall record implies.

Ground conditions matter too. On fast, dry ground, Shady Bay wins 2 of every 7 races — a 29% win rate that is nearly double what it manages overall. That is a meaningful pattern. When the sun has been out and the track is quick underfoot, this horse finds another gear. Sean Levey is the regular partner in the saddle, and while their combined record of 1 win from 6 races together is modest, the partnership is clearly an established one.

Tom Ward trains the horse from Upper Lambourn in Berkshire, a village that has been at the heart of British flat racing for generations. The yard has sent out 14 winners already this season, which suggests it is operating confidently. Shady Bay first won for them back in October 2024 at Southwell, and has now developed into a horse with a genuine course preference, a ground preference, and recent form that reads 4-3-3-1 — meaning four consecutive top-four finishes including a win. It raced just yesterday, which makes it one of the more active horses around right now. Everything points to a horse that is fit, happy, and very much worth watching next time it heads to Nottingham.