Aidan Anthony Howard

The headline stat is straightforward: 2 winners from 39 runners this season, a win rate of around 1 in every 20. That is modest by any measure, but the direction of travel matters here. Twelve months ago, Howard had not trained a single winner. This year he has two. For a small yard still finding its feet, going from zero to something is genuinely significant — it means horses are arriving fit, ready, and competitive.

One pattern worth watching is how his horses perform on wet or muddy ground. In those conditions, Howard's runners have won 1 from 9 races — roughly 1 in every 9, which works out to an 11% win rate. Compare that to his overall 5% and it becomes clear that when the ground is soft and the rain is falling, his yard punches noticeably above its weight. Whether that reflects a preference in how he trains his horses or simply the types of animals he has is hard to say, but it is a trend any follower of the yard should keep an eye on.

His most familiar partnership is with jockey Jack Cleary, who has ridden for Howard 10 times without a winner between them. That is a frustrating run for both men, but 10 races is still a relatively small sample — plenty of successful trainer-jockey partnerships have started on a losing streak. His longest-running association with a single horse is with Bhean Saibhre, who has run 22 times under Howard's care and won once together. Twenty-two races is a serious investment of time and effort, and that single win will have meant a great deal.

Howard is clearly not a trainer whose name fills the big-race entries — not yet, anyway. But the story of his career so far is one of persistence and gradual progress. He started with nothing, kept going, and now has winners on the board. For a trainer four years in, that is exactly the kind of foundation you build on.