Harry Derham

The big occasions have not fazed him either. Derham has won six top-level races in his career — the kind of races that define a trainer's reputation — at venues including Cheltenham, Taunton and Huntingdon. He added two more Class 1 wins in February 2026 alone, at Wincanton and Huntingdon, within ten days of each other. That kind of back-to-back success at the highest level is not luck. It suggests a yard that knows how to prepare horses for the moments that matter most.

Look closely at the numbers and a few patterns emerge that tell you even more. At Hexham, Derham has won with 3 of just 5 runners — that is 3 wins from 5 attempts at a single track, which is the sort of record that makes other trainers take notice. Whether it is the track's particular demands or simply that he picks his spots carefully there, it is hard to argue with. His most productive relationship is with jockey Paul O'Brien, who has ridden 40 winners for the yard from 188 rides together — winning at 21%, or just better than 1 in every 5. That kind of long-running partnership, built on trust and mutual understanding, is often where the best results come from.

Then there is Queens Gamble, a horse Derham has sent out to win 3 times from 10 races together. Three from ten might not sound staggering, but in a sport where finding the right race for the right horse at the right time is genuinely difficult, that record shows a trainer who reads his horses well. Derham is only three years in. The trajectory is striking.