Joel Parkinson & Sue Smith

What really sets this partnership apart is the quality they have reached so quickly. Three Class 1 victories — the highest level of racing in Britain — in their first year of training together is a remarkable achievement. Those wins came at Newcastle in November 2025, Wetherby on Boxing Day 2025, and Haydock Park in February 2026. Landing a top-level race once is a feather in any trainer's cap; doing it three times in the space of a few months, at three different prestigious venues, suggests this is not a yard simply getting lucky.

On the track, Bangor-on-Dee has become something of a happy hunting ground. Five winners from just 10 runners there means the team has won exactly half its races at that venue — an extraordinary return that speaks to a real feel for what that track demands. Normal ground conditions have also suited them well, with 3 wins from 9 races (33%), meaning they win roughly 1 in every 3 races when conditions are standard underfoot.

The yard's most productive jockey partnership is with Peter Kavanagh, who has ridden 85 times for them and converted 12 of those into wins — a rate of about 1 in every 7 rides, or 14%. But the most eye-catching number belongs to Heather Honey, who has partnered their horses just 11 times and won on 5 of them. That is a remarkable 45% win rate — nearly every other ride ends in victory. That kind of record between a jockey and a yard usually takes years to build.

For a training partnership barely a year old, Joel Parkinson and Sue Smith are already operating at the top end of the sport. If the first 12 months are anything to go by, this is a yard worth watching very closely.