Robert Stephens

The most compelling story in Stephens's operation is his partnership with Knight Templar. Seven wins from 16 races together is a remarkable hit rate — nearly 1 in every 2 — and tells you this is a trainer who knows exactly how to place a horse when he has one he believes in. Finding the right race at the right time is genuinely one of the hardest skills in training, and that record suggests Stephens has a sharp eye for it.

When conditions are normal underfoot, Stephens's yard really hums. On standard ground, his horses have won 4 from 23 races — roughly 1 in every 6 — which is noticeably better than his overall average. That kind of split matters. Some trainers prepare horses beautifully but then see the form fall apart when the ground changes; Stephens appears to have a string that performs consistently when conditions behave themselves.

His most-used jockey is Ciaran Gethings, who has partnered Stephens's horses 27 times for 2 wins — around 1 in every 14 rides together. That's modest, but frequency of use tells its own story. When a trainer keeps putting the same jockey up, it usually means there's trust being built, even if the winners haven't always followed. Over 27 rides, Gethings has had plenty of opportunity to learn how this yard's horses tick, and that kind of familiarity tends to pay off eventually.

Four years in, 38 career winners, and a standout horse-and-trainer combination that wins nearly half its races together — Stephens is still a small operation, but the signs point to someone who is getting better at this job with every passing season.