Billy Loughnane will be crowned British flat champion jockey for the first time at Ascot on Saturday, and few would argue he has not earned it. Since the championship got under way on 2 May, the 20-year-old has ridden 157 winners from 782 rides in Britain according to the official championship table, a strike rate of 20.1%. That leaves him 29 clear of Oisin Murphy, who admitted this week that he stopped chasing the title at the end of September.
We have been through every one of his rides in Britain this season to find out where, and for whom, the winners have come.
Loughnane’s Happy Hunting Ground: The July Course
Top tracks by number of winners
Wolverhampton has supplied more winners than anywhere else, with 19 from 85 rides, but it is Newmarket’s July Course where Loughnane has really excelled. He rode 17 winners from 58 rides there over the summer, including the July Cup on Comanche Brave, and he rode four trebles there, three of them in the space of a week between 1 and 7 August.
The Rowley Mile has been a different story. He has ridden just six winners from 44 rides there, a 14% strike rate, although the first was the one that mattered most, Bow Echo in the 2,000 Guineas on the opening day of the championship. In all, he has had a winner at 27 different tracks.
Top tracks by strike rate
Among the tracks where he has had at least ten rides, Ffos Las tops the strike-rate table. He won ten of his 25 rides at the Welsh track, and Doncaster has been almost as kind, with five winners from 13 rides including the Champagne Stakes on Desert Castle and a treble on 9 July.
Brighton (five from 17) and the July Course (17 from 58) both come in at 29%, while Salisbury, where he won four times from 16 rides, rounds off the top six at 25%. Ascot completes the top six at 26%, with five winners from 19 rides, including the Bengough on Hidden Force. Royal Ascot is counted separately, and there he won three times from 28 rides with Bow Echo, Libertango and 33/1 shot King Of Cloughan.
Boughey and Appleby lead the way
Top trainers by winners
Unsurprisingly, George Boughey has been the bedrock of Loughnane’s title bid. The pair have combined for 37 winners from 174 rides, more than double any other partnership, with 95 placed. As well as supplying Bow Echo, the Newmarket trainer’s two-year-olds have been a rich source of winners, with 22 of the 37 coming in novice, maiden or nursery races.
Charlie Appleby is second with 15 winners, and the gap then closes sharply. Jane Chapple-Hyam and Ed Dunlop have supplied five each, and James Owen and John Butler lead a group of six trainers on four. In total, a remarkble 63 different trainers have provided him with at least one winner, showing the burgeoning champion’s popularity and hunger within the game.
Top trainers by strike rate
On strike rate (minimum ten rides), Appleby comes out on top. Loughnane won on 15 of his 42 rides for Godolphin’s trainer, a hit rate of 36%, with 27 of the 42 making the frame.
James Owen is next at 33%, with four winners from 12 rides that include a Brighton double and Kirchner at Ascot. John Butler (four from 13) and John and Thady Gosden (three from ten, including Listed winner So Regal) are both above 30%, while Chapple-Hyam (29%) and Dunlop (26%) complete the top six.
The treble specialist
Loughnane has not managed a four-timer this season, but three winners in a day has become routine. He has ridden 19 trebles since 2 May, along with 22 doubles, and 97 of his 143 days riding in Britain have produced at least one winner. It is consistency rather than any spectacular outliers which have laid the groundwork for his championship anointing.
His most efficient day came at Kempton on 27 May, when he won aboard three of his four rides. The most significant probably came at Ascot on 3 October, when Listed winner So Regal and Group 3 Bengough Stakes winner Hidden Force headed a Saturday treble.
Bow Echo and the big-race triumphs
This will always be remembered as the season of Bow Echo. On the very first day of the championship, Loughnane and Boughey’s colt won the 2,000 Guineas at 9/2. They followed up by a head in a titanic St James’s Palace Stakes battle with Gstaad at Royal Ascot, then came through traffic to beat the same rival in the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood. That made Bow Echo the first horse since Frankel to win all three in the same season, and he was retired through injury in August, unbeaten in six starts, all of them with Loughnane on board.
His fourth British Group 1 came at 11/1 on Donnacha O’Brien’s Comanche Brave in the July Cup, and the pair also won the Flying Five Stakes at the Curragh. Boughey’s Libertango landed the Albany at Royal Ascot and the Lowther at York, while Joseph O’Brien’s King Of Cloughan gave him a 33/1 Royal Ascot winner in the Windsor Castle.
What next season may look like
There is no sign of the Boughey partnership slowing down, and Libertango looks the obvious Classic ride for 2027. A dual Group-winning filly at two, she has the profile of a 1,000 Guineas contender,.
The Appleby link could be just as significant. Loughnane won the Champagne Stakes on Desert Castle, although William Buick took over when the colt was beaten a neck in the Dewhurst, so that ride is far from guaranteed. Nevertheless, Al Jabbar, a Doncaster maiden winner who was third in the Autumn Stakes, is another Godolphin juvenile he knows well, while Rock Montreal is another likely 2,000 Guineas contender for Godolphin who could well be the second string in the race.