Mr D McGill(7)

This season, though, has been a tough one. McGill has ridden 72 races and won just 5 of them — roughly 1 in every 14 — which represents a significant dip from last year, when he was winning at nearly 1 in every 6. That kind of drop is worth paying attention to. It does not necessarily mean McGill has got worse; form fluctuates, rides dry up, and horses don't always cooperate. But it is the sort of run that a young jockey needs to arrest before it becomes a pattern rather than a blip.

Where McGill does show something more encouraging is on normal ground. In those conditions he has won 4 races from 30 — that is 1 in every 7 or 8, closer to the level he was hitting last year and a noticeably better return than his overall numbers suggest. His most regular training partner is John Patrick Ryan, with whom he has had 11 rides and 1 winner. One from eleven is a modest return, but established partnerships between young jockeys and trainers tend to be built on trust as much as results, and the fact that Ryan keeps putting McGill up is a relationship worth watching.

At 21 career winners in four years, McGill is not setting the world alight — but plenty of jockeys who go on to have long, successful careers have had slower starts than this. The next twelve months will tell a lot. Can he claw the win rate back toward where it was? Can the Ryan partnership start clicking more regularly? Right now the questions are more interesting than the answers, which is often exactly where a young rider's story begins to get worth following.