W J Lee

This season tells a slightly mixed story. He has ridden 63 winners from 484 races — roughly 1 in every 8 — which sounds solid until you consider he was winning closer to 1 in every 6 last year. That dip from 17% to 13% is worth watching, but it needs context: more rides often means more rides on harder horses, and a jockey at this level of activity is rarely turning work away. Volume and quality do not always travel together.

Where Lee really catches the eye is in the wet. On muddy or rain-softened ground, he wins 14 races from every 63 — around 1 in every 4.5 — which is a meaningfully better return than his overall numbers suggest. Some jockeys find an extra gear when conditions get testing, perhaps because they are more patient, more sympathetic with a horse that needs to find its footing. Lee appears to be one of them. Tipperary tells a similar story: 4 winners from just 7 runners there is the kind of record that makes trainers take notice when entries go in.

His partnership with trainer P Twomey is the engine room of his career. Thirty-one winners from 102 rides together — winning almost 1 in every 3 races — is an exceptional return and speaks to a working relationship built on real trust and understanding. When a trainer keeps putting you up at that frequency and you keep delivering at that rate, it stops being coincidence and starts being a genuine combination. His bond with King Cuan underlines the same quality: four wins from ten races together with one horse is a genuine partnership, the kind that fans remember.

At 376 career winners and still only four years in, Lee has every reason to expect the numbers to keep climbing.