John Ryan

Those big-race wins tell an important story. Ascot in October 2022, Doncaster in September of the same year, and then Doncaster again in October 2024 — Ryan has not just reached the top table once and retreated. He keeps coming back to it. Most small operations spend years chasing a single Class 1 win. Ryan has three, spread across multiple seasons, which suggests a genuine eye for placing a horse where it can win at the highest level rather than simply filling the yard with runners.

On a day-to-day basis, the numbers are more modest but still respectable. This season he has sent out 125 runners and won with 12 of them — roughly 1 in every 10, or a 10% win rate. That is slightly down from 13% last year, so there is a small dip in form worth monitoring, though a single quiet patch rarely defines a trainer of this quality. Where Ryan genuinely excels is on normal ground conditions, where his horses win at a 15% rate — 8 wins from 52 races, or roughly 1 in every 6.5. That is a meaningful edge, and it suggests the yard's horses are built to perform when the track is neither too wet nor too dry.

His most frequent jockey partnership is with Darragh Keenan, who has ridden 31 times for the yard and won twice. A 6% win rate from that combination is on the lower side, which is worth noting — it may simply reflect Keenan taking on trickier assignments within the yard rather than any real mismatch, but it is a figure that bears watching as the partnership develops.

Four years in, Ryan already has a CV that commands respect. The question for the next chapter is whether the win rate steadies and climbs again — because the talent to train a top-level winner is clearly there.