Ben Pauling

The headline numbers are impressive, but what really sets Pauling apart is his record at the top level. Twenty-four Class 1 wins — the biggest, most competitive races in Britain — is a remarkable tally for someone still in their fourth season. Those wins have come at some of the most prestigious venues in the country: Cheltenham, Ascot, Kempton Park. He picked up two Class 1 victories within a month of each other in early 2026, at Windsor in January and Ascot in February, the kind of back-to-back results that get people in racing talking. A winner at Kempton on 27 December 2025 — one of the busiest and most watched days of the winter calendar — added to the sense of a trainer who shows up on the big occasions.

There are subtler signs of quality too. At Leicester, his runners have won 5 times from just 7 attempts. That is an extraordinary ratio — winning 5 of 7 at any track suggests either an exceptional feel for which horses suit which races, or a trainer whose horses are simply better prepared than the competition. Probably both.

His most productive partnership is with jockey Ben Jones, and the numbers there tell their own story: 60 wins together from 311 rides, a win rate of 19%, or just under 1 in every 5. When a trainer and jockey click like that — building a shared understanding of how horses need to be ridden — the results tend to compound. Jones clearly trusts the horses that arrive from the yard, and Pauling clearly trusts the man in the saddle.

Four years in, 338 winners, 24 top-level victories, and a win rate that most established trainers would envy. Pauling is no longer a name to watch — he is a name to know.