Spring Is Sprung

The most eye-catching chapter of Spring Is Sprung's story came with the £100,000 Sunday Series bonus — a prize awarded to horses who can win three specific qualifying races in a single season. According to trainer Paul Midgley, the planning was meticulous: after wins at Newmarket and Chelmsford, the team deliberately held the horse back rather than risk a run that might push his official rating up and make the third leg harder. It was a frustrating wait, especially with the fast, dry ground Spring Is Sprung prefers available elsewhere. But the patience paid off. The third win came at Haydock, and by all accounts it wasn't a scramble — jockey Jason Hart reported afterwards that the horse had plenty left to give at the line. Owner John Blackburn was full of praise for Midgley's handling of the whole campaign, and it's easy to see why. Landing three competitive races in a row is hard enough; engineering a six-figure bonus around them is something else entirely.

Hart and Spring Is Sprung are clearly a good match. In six races together they have won 3 — that is half of all their shared outings, a quite remarkable ratio at this level. Southwell is where the horse first announced itself, winning there on 11 January 2022, and it has returned to win there again as recently as January this year. Two wins from 7 races at the same track is the kind of record that makes trainers pencil a course into the diary every time the entries come out. The horse also has a clear preference for the shortest distances — over sprints under five furlongs, it wins roughly 1 in every 3 races, a noticeably better return than elsewhere. Paul Midgley's yard has been in strong form this season with 39 winners sent out, and Spring Is Sprung — who raced just yesterday — looks like a horse still very much in the thick of things.