EVERYONE who goes to the races loves a winner, but it’s even better if it’s a long price, and you are the owner of the horse that is first past the post.

Well that is exactly what happened when ex-Wellington businesswoman Gill Shire ran her four year old filly Freedom Bay at Bath Races when, not only did she run well, but won at odds of 33-1.

Gill said: “It was a bit of surprise to most of us really, but it’s always good to get a winner. The ones we have previously run we have bred but they have now all retired so we bought Freedom Bay to give us a horse to have an interest in.

“Our previous horses have been with Stuart Kittow , but he has now retired and Zoe Hawkins who worked for him for eight years has taken on the yard and now running it on her own.”

Gill went on: “ I first saw Freedom Bay running at Leicester last year but she needed to develop and had a habit of pulling back when she was asked to go. I felt that she needed to be put away in cotton wool and brought out when she was a bit stronger.

“She had a wind operation over the winter and ran once at Nottingham where she was disappointing. The jockey got her in position but she just wouldn’t go.

“She ran over a mile at Bath and the instruction to the jockey was to get her behind everybody and then edge her on to go through - and that’s what she did and did it quite well.”

Freedom Bay certainly did do it quite well, beating Galactic Glow, the 85-40 short priced favourite, by one and a quarter lengths to send Gill and husband Alan back to Wellington with plenty to cheer about.