James Ryan

This season, though, has been a tougher grind than usual. Ryan has ridden 424 times and come away with 20 winners — that's roughly 1 in every 21 races, or a 5% win rate. To put that in perspective, last year he was winning at 7%, so the current campaign represents a noticeable dip. Whether that's down to the horses he's been put on, a run of bad luck, or something he's working to iron out in his riding, a drop like that is the kind of thing a jockey notices. It matters. Over that volume of rides, the difference between 5% and 7% is around eight or nine extra winners — and winners are everything in this game.

His most consistent working relationship is with trainer Jack W Davison, and it's one worth paying attention to. Ryan has ridden 97 times for Davison and come back with 8 winners — winning around 1 in every 12 races for the yard. That's noticeably better than his overall average this season, which suggests the partnership is built on something real: trust, communication, and horses that suit the way Ryan rides. When a trainer keeps putting the same jockey up nearly a hundred times, it's not habit — it's confidence.

The track where Ryan looks most dangerous right now is Roscommon. He has ridden 17 horses there and won on 4 of them — that's nearly 1 in every 4 rides, a win rate more than four times better than his season average. That kind of record at a specific course is rarely an accident. It could be that the track suits a style he's particularly good at, or simply that he knows it well enough to find a way when others can't. Either way, if you ever find yourself watching racing at Roscommon and James Ryan's name is in the racecard, that's a detail worth noticing.