Joseph Parr

This season, though, has been a tougher watch. Parr has sent out 125 runners and come back with just 6 winners — that's roughly 1 in every 21 races, a 5% win rate that represents a sharp drop from the 14% he was hitting last year. To put that in perspective, last season he was winning nearly 1 in every 7 races; right now it's closer to 1 in 20. That kind of dip happens in training — horses go through quiet patches, yards recalibrate — but it's a number worth watching. If the form that made last year so productive is still in there somewhere, a bounce-back is very much on the cards.

Where Parr does look most at home is on normal ground, the kind of surface that suits a clean-going horse and rewards good preparation. On those conditions this season, he's won 6 from 62 races — a 10% win rate, or roughly 1 in every 10 — which is meaningfully better than his overall numbers suggest. It implies the yard's struggles this term are at least partly down to circumstances rather than a wholesale loss of form.

Southwell is also worth flagging. The all-weather track in Nottinghamshire has been particularly kind to Parr, with 3 winners from just 19 runners there. That's a 16% win rate — nearly 1 in every 6 — and when a trainer consistently performs above their average at a specific track, it usually means they understand the place: how to target it, how to prepare a horse for it, and when to go there with one that's ready.

His most regular jockey partnership is with Darragh Keenan, who has ridden 21 times for the yard and come home in front twice — a 10% win rate, or 1 in every 10 or so. That's actually ahead of Parr's overall seasonal average, which suggests Keenan is being put up when the team fancy their chances. A quiet season, but the foundations are still there.