Olly Murphy

The top-level success tells you this isn't simply a yard that piles up winners in smaller races. Murphy has won 16 Class 1 races across his career — the biggest races in Britain — at prestigious venues including Sandown Park, Newbury, and Carlisle. That list includes a top-level win at Cheltenham in November 2025, one of the most competitive and celebrated racecourses in the world, and another at Carlisle just a fortnight earlier. When it matters most, he delivers.

What makes the numbers even more striking right now is that Murphy appears to be hitting peak form at exactly the right time. Over the last two weeks, his horses have won 5 from 14 — that's a win rate of 36%, almost double his already strong seasonal average. When a trainer's horses start winning at that kind of clip, it usually means everything in the yard is clicking: fitness, timing, track selection. It's the kind of purple patch that punters dream of spotting early.

His most productive working relationship is with jockey Sean Bowen, and the statistics make the case plainly. Bowen has ridden 478 times for Murphy, winning on 114 of those occasions — that's nearly one win in every four rides. For context, that's a better hit rate than Murphy's overall yard average, suggesting Bowen and Murphy genuinely bring out the best in each other's horses. Meanwhile, a horse called Tap Tap Shamie has won 1 of their 3 races together, a partnership still finding its feet but worth watching.

There's also a small but telling detail about Fakenham, a tight, quirky track in Norfolk that suits certain horses and trainers who understand it. Murphy has won 3 races from just 6 runners there — half of everything he's entered has won. That sort of record at a specific course isn't luck; it's knowledge. Four years in, Olly Murphy looks very much like a trainer who knows exactly what he's doing.