Mr D Doyle(7)

The most telling number in his record is the partnership with trainer Timothy Doyle — almost certainly a family connection, given the shared surname — where he has managed 1 win from 39 rides together. That is a long run of near-misses with someone who is presumably putting him on horses with a genuine chance. It suggests the problem is not a lack of opportunity so much as a lack of luck, or perhaps a stage of development where things simply are not clicking yet.

The one area where he looks sharper is on wet or soft ground. On those days he has won 2 from 24 races — roughly 1 in every 12 — which is meaningfully better than his overall numbers. Whether that reflects a particular style of riding, the types of horses he tends to get on in those conditions, or something else entirely is hard to say, but it is a thread worth pulling on. On a wet afternoon, he becomes a more interesting proposition.

At 3% overall this season, Doyle is in the grind that most conditional jockeys know well — trying to ride enough winners to stay relevant while the opportunities are still modest. The step down from 7% to 3% between seasons will concern him, but four years in is still early. The riders who come through are usually the ones who find a way to arrest a dip like this rather than let it become a pattern.