Patrick Neville

The most telling part of that story is the improvement. Last year Neville was winning around 1 in every 6 races — already a solid record for a relatively new yard. This season he has pushed that to 1 in 5, suggesting this is not a trainer who has found a level and settled into it, but one who is actively getting better at his job. In a sport where experience counts for everything, that rate of development is genuinely unusual.

The highlight of the CV so far is three wins in the top tier of British racing — Class 1 races, the ones that matter most. Two came at Cheltenham, which is the most prestigious jumping venue in the country, in January and March 2023. A third followed at Wetherby in November 2024. Winning once at Cheltenham can be put down to a good day; winning twice there inside three months, in only your second year of training, is something else entirely.

Closer to home, Neville has built a particularly strong record at Sedgefield in the north of England, where his horses have won 12 races from just 28 runners — that is nearly 1 in every 2 runners converted into a winner, which is a remarkable number at any track. When a trainer consistently outperforms at a specific course, it usually means they understand the track, the conditions, and how to place their horses there better than almost anyone else.

His most productive working relationship is with jockey Brian Hughes, one of the most experienced jump jockeys in the north. Together they have won 17 races from 67 rides — a win rate of 1 in 4, which is noticeably better than Neville's overall average. That kind of partnership, where horse, jockey, and trainer regularly click, is one of the quiet building blocks of a successful yard. Four years in, Neville is looking less like a trainer finding his feet and more like one building something serious.