Marco Ghiani

The numbers get even more interesting when you break them down by conditions. On very wet, muddy ground — the kind that turns a racetrack into a slog and sorts out horses and riders alike — Ghiani has won 4 from just 8 races, which works out at exactly half. That is a remarkable return. Riding well in the mud requires feel, patience, and confidence, and those numbers suggest he has all three. Salisbury tells a similar story: 5 winners from 11 races there, which is nearly 1 in every 2. That is the sort of record that trainers notice when they are deciding who to call.

His biggest wins have come at some of the most prestigious venues in the sport. Six victories at Class 1 level — the top tier of British racing — including at York, Chester and Lingfield Park, show that when the big occasions arrive, he has delivered. Those are not flukes; they are the races that define careers.

His most productive working relationship is with trainer Stuart Williams, with whom he has ridden 25 winners from 161 races together — a win rate of around 1 in every 6. That consistency over a large number of rides speaks to genuine trust on both sides. The standout partnership on a single horse, though, is with Lizzana: two wins from just three races together, a combination that has clicked almost immediately.

Ghiani is the kind of jockey whose progress is easy to track and hard to ignore. The winners are coming more frequently, the big-race experience is building, and the conditions that slow other riders down seem to suit him just fine. At four years in, the trajectory is pointing firmly upward.