Joe Tickle

The partnership with jockey Taylor Fisher is the engine room of that progress. Together they have won 11 races from 71 rides — that's 15%, or almost 1 in every 6 — which comfortably outperforms Tickle's overall figures. When a trainer and jockey develop genuine chemistry, horses tend to run more consistently, because the instructions from the yard translate cleanly into what happens on the track. Fisher clearly understands what Tickle wants, and the numbers reflect it.

Then there is Taritino, the horse that sits at the centre of Tickle's best work. Six wins from 32 races together is a partnership that speaks to patience and understanding — that's nearly 1 in every 5 races, and with 32 outings together, it is not a fluke. Some trainers find a horse they simply understand better than anyone else, and Taritino looks like that horse for Tickle.

One detail that stands out is his record on fast, dry ground. With only six runners on those conditions, the sample is small — but three winners from six is 50%, and you don't dismiss a stat like that entirely. It suggests that when the ground firms up in summer, Tickle's horses may be particularly well-suited to handling it. That is the kind of edge worth watching as the season progresses.

Forty-two winners from four years of training is a modest total by the standards of the big established yards, but Tickle is not competing against those operations yet — he is building toward them. The win rate is improving season on season, the Fisher partnership is producing results, and he has at least one horse in Taritino that he has got to know inside out. The foundations look solid. The next step is finding out how high he can take it.