Paul Midgley

This season tells an encouraging story. Midgley has trained 39 winners from 339 runners, which works out at roughly 1 in every 9 races — a 12% win rate that is a genuine step up from the 9% he posted last year. In a sport where improvement at this level is hard-earned, that kind of upward trajectory over a single season is worth noticing. It suggests a trainer still finding his feet in the best possible way — getting sharper, not plateauing.

There are specific conditions where Midgley's horses seem to come alive. On wet or muddy ground, his runners win at 18%, or 3 from 17 races — a noticeably higher rate than his overall average. That gap is meaningful. It hints at a trainer who understands how to place horses for softer conditions, or perhaps one whose string simply handles wet days better than most. Nottingham is another place where things click: 6 winners from 22 runners at that track is a return any trainer would take, and it makes Midgley worth following closely whenever he declares there.

His most reliable jockey partnership is with David Nolan, who has ridden 11 winners for the yard from 102 races together — roughly 1 in every 9, mirroring Midgley's overall win rate almost exactly. That consistency across more than a hundred rides suggests a genuine working understanding between the two. Then there is Get Up Everybody, a horse that has run 12 times for Midgley without winning — which, in a yard with this win rate, starts to look like one of those stubborn puzzles every trainer carries around. Twelve chances, zero wins. Racing can be that way.

Four years in, 167 winners banked, and a win rate heading in the right direction — Midgley is building something real, quietly and steadily, from the right kind of foundations.