Alan Doyle(3)

This season, though, has been a tougher run than he would have liked. Nine winners from 150 rides works out at roughly 1 in every 17 races — a 6% win rate that represents a noticeable dip from the 10% he was hitting this time last year. That drop matters, because in a competitive weighing room, momentum is everything. Jockeys who win get more calls; fewer calls means fewer chances to turn things around. Doyle will be well aware that he needs to find his groove again sooner rather than later.

One area where he does show a clear edge is in wet conditions. On slightly soft ground, he has won 4 times from 43 races — a 9% win rate that sits meaningfully above his overall average. That might sound modest, but in a sport where margins are everything, a jockey who handles a tricky, muddy surface better than the average is genuinely useful to the trainers who pay attention to those details.

His most consistent partnership has been with the yard run by Lucinda Russell and Michael Scudamore, where he has landed 3 wins from 44 rides together — around 1 in every 15. That's not a partnership setting the world alight statistically, but Russell and Scudamore run a serious northern operation, and getting regular rides from a yard of that calibre is a meaningful vote of confidence in a young jockey still finding his feet at this level. Keeping that relationship strong, and perhaps improving his numbers within it, looks like one of the clearest paths forward for Doyle.

At 25 or so rides a week, he is clearly getting his chances. The question now is whether he can convert them at the rate he managed last season. Jockeys have come back from slumps like this before — sometimes all it takes is one run of winners to shift the momentum entirely. Whether that run is coming soon is the thing to watch.