Rob Hornby

What makes this season particularly worth paying attention to is the direction of travel. Last year Hornby was winning 1 in every 12 or 13 races — around 8%. This year that figure has jumped to 12%, nearly 1 in 9. That kind of improvement over a single season suggests something has clicked, whether in the rides he's being offered, how he's riding them, or both.

The big-occasion record backs that up. Hornby has won 16 top-level races — the best races in Britain — at venues including Newmarket, Sandown Park and Newbury. That list got a little longer on 3 October 2025, when he won at Ascot, one of the most high-profile stages in the sport. Winning at Ascot at the top level is the sort of result that follows a jockey around in a good way.

Then there's Newcastle. Seven winners from just 12 runners at that track is a remarkable return — more than half his rides there have ended in a win. That's not a coincidence; it suggests a genuine feel for the track, the kind of local knowledge that more experienced jockeys build over a decade.

His most consistent partnership is with trainer Jonathan Portman, and the numbers are striking: 27 wins from 161 rides together, a win rate of 17%, or almost 1 in every 6. That's well above his overall average, which tells you this is a pairing where genuine trust has developed on both sides. When a trainer keeps putting you on horses at that kind of frequency, and you keep delivering, something more than coincidence is at work. At 329 career winners in four years, with a top-level haul that most jockeys would be proud of after twice the time, Hornby looks like someone still on the way up.