Sam Twiston-Davies

The highlight of his career so far is a collection of 25 top-level races — the kind that matter most, at the biggest venues in British racing. Cheltenham, Aintree, Wetherby: these are the stages where reputations are made, and Twiston-Davies has won at all three. A Class 1 win at Cheltenham on New Year's Day 2026 is the sort of result that sticks in the memory — Cheltenham on a big occasion is where the nerves show, and he delivered.

His most productive working relationship is with trainer Nigel and Willy Twiston-Davies — and yes, the surname is shared, which tells you something about how he came up in the sport. Together they have combined for 33 wins from 202 races, winning at a rate of 16%, or roughly 1 in every 6 rides. That kind of long-term partnership, built on familiarity and trust, is often where a jockey does their best work.

On a smaller scale, his record at Fontwell Park stands out. Four winners from just 7 runners there is a remarkable conversion rate — more than half the horses he has ridden at that track have won. For context, the average jockey at any given track is doing well to win 1 in 8 or 1 in 10. Winning 4 from 7 somewhere suggests he either knows the track exceptionally well or simply gets given very good horses to ride there — either way, it is worth paying attention to.

His partnership with Big Ticket — 1 win from 6 races together — is less decorated, but six races together suggests a genuine ongoing combination rather than a one-off. Only 1 win to show for it so far, but these things take time to click. At 470 career winners and still only four years in, Twiston-Davies looks like a jockey still very much in the middle of building something.