Charlie Maggs(3)

This season he has been as consistent as they come, riding 41 winners from 316 races — roughly 1 in every 8, or 13% across the board. That might not sound explosive, but in jump racing, where the fields are competitive and the margins are tight, maintaining that kind of consistency over more than 300 rides in a single season is genuinely hard work. He is not a jockey who peaks and fades; he just keeps delivering.

His most reliable partnership is with trainer Donald McCain, one of the north of England's most respected yards. From 63 rides together they have produced 8 winners — again that 1-in-8 ratio, which suggests a settled working relationship built on trust rather than luck. When a trainer keeps putting you up race after race, it means they believe in you.

Where Maggs really catches the eye, though, is in the mud. On very wet and heavy ground — the sort of conditions that separate horses and riders who truly relish a battle from those who are just going through the motions — he has won 3 races from just 8, a remarkable 38% win rate. That is closer to 2 in every 5 races, a figure that stands well clear of his already solid overall record and suggests real strength and timing when conditions get brutal.

And then there is Hexham. The tight, undulating track in Northumberland seems tailor-made for him: 7 winners from 24 races there is just under 1 in 3, a record that any experienced jockey would be proud of, let alone one still in the early years of his career. Some jockeys just click with certain tracks — the bends, the cambers, the way the ground rides — and Hexham appears to be that place for Maggs. If you see his name on a card there on a wet afternoon, you have been warned.