Lady Hope springs 33-1 shock in Goffs Hundred Grand Bumper

Lady Hope made the perfect racecourse introduction to run out a shock 33-1 winner in the valuable Goffs Hundred Grand Bumper at Newbury.

Trained locally by Hughie Morrison, it was easy to see why she was sent off at such long odds in a competitive heat featuring plenty of impressive previous winners.

In a race where many would still have been fancying their chances inside the final two furlongs, the mount of Johnny Burke met her fair share of traffic problems in running.

However, once in daylight she came home full of running to down Nicky Henderson’s Madam Speaker by three-quarters of a length.

Morrison said: “Before Christmas I said to Martin (Hughes, part-owner) that she is a lovely looking filly who deserves to go for a decent race. They are all decent these bumpers so we thought why not have a day out at Newbury.

“We had a blip a couple of weeks ago with a bruised foot and I thought she wasn’t going to make it here but she’s obviously a quality mare.

“We’ve always liked her as a physical specimen and the way she moves, but most of my bumper horses are basically a mile and a half horses who on the winter ground just don’t get home. The others work all over her and we were hoping just to have a nice day out to be honest.

“She was green, she didn’t know what she was doing and she won with her ears pricked. She’s obviously got a superb engine and was expertly bought by Paul Webber at the sales.”

He went on: “She gets a bonus for this as well so she’s just won around £85,000. What’s the point in running her again and it takes so much out of them these races.

“She’s only just four so I think she deserves a few more lessons jumping before being turned out into the paddock and allowed to grow up.”