John Shinnick

His most established partnership is with trainer Terence O'Brien, though the numbers there are honest rather than sparkling — 4 wins from 77 races together, meaning they click into the winner's enclosure roughly 1 in every 19 times out. That might sound modest, but a jockey who keeps getting booked by the same yard over 77 rides is clearly doing something right. Trainers don't keep calling a jockey out of habit; they call them because they trust what they see on the track, even when the wins don't always come.

Where Shinnick genuinely stands out is on normal ground conditions — not too wet, not too dry, just a standard racing surface. In those circumstances he wins 6 from 53 races, an 11% win rate, or roughly 1 in every 9. That is meaningfully better than his overall average, and it suggests he is at his most effective when conditions are straightforward and the race is decided on riding rather than survival. Whether that reflects the types of horses he gets on good-ground days, or something in his own style, it is the clearest edge his record currently shows.

Still only four years in, Shinnick is at the stage where careers can go several different directions. The foundations are there — consistent rides, a loyal training partner, and a ground-condition sweet spot that gives him a real edge on the right days. The question for the next season or two is whether the win rate climbs back toward 9% and beyond, or whether 7% becomes the ceiling. Jockeys at his stage of a career are defined less by where they are now and more by which way the line on the graph is pointing.