Mr D Doyle(7)

What makes that stat worth paying attention to is the direction of travel. Last year he was winning around 1 in every 14 races — a rate of 7% that suggested a young rider finding his feet at a decent pace. This season that has slipped to 2%, which is a sharp drop and the kind of dip that will not have gone unnoticed by trainers deciding who to book. Whether it is a temporary blip or a more telling sign is the key question hanging over his season.

His most regular partnership has been with trainer Timothy Doyle — almost certainly a family connection, which is common in racing — but that pairing has yet to produce a winner from 38 races together. Thirty-eight attempts is a substantial run without a breakthrough, and at some point results need to follow loyalty. On the positive side, he shows a slightly better record on wet or soft ground, winning 1 from 25 races in those conditions, which at least hints at a preference worth noting. Two winners from 113 rides is a hard place to be, but every jockey who has made it had a difficult chapter somewhere along the way.