Last Saturday, the hugely entertaining ‘Upping the Ante’ column in the Racing Post posed the question “Who is the most underrated jockey riding on the Flat?” and Johnny Dineen answered as follows… “One of my biggest assets over the years was identifying jockeys who were underrated or even overrated and there is an edge there for any punter who can spot either, particularly before most others can see an obvious trend. The most underrated Flat jockey in Britain riding at the minute is without a shadow of doubt Ray Dawson, who has all the attributes required of a to-tier rider. He’s tactically aware, invariably proactive on his mounts, exceptionally strong and superb at getting horses from the gates, something which is quite often not considered when discussing a jockey’s ability. He wins races he’s shouldn’t and doesn’t lose races he should win…”
David Johnson’s take was as follows…”Robert Whearty is a rider I like in Ireland. He creeps away and seems to excel on hold-up performers. David Allan is underappreciated, too. He has already surpassed last year’s total of 61 and is riding out of his skin at the moment. I agree with Jonny about Ray Dawson, as well.”
With both columnists mentioning his name, let’s take a detailed look at Ray Dawson’s record since racing resumed after lockdown in June 2020 (up to and including the results on Monday, September 8th 2025)…
…250 winners from 1964 rides (12.73% strike-rate) for a loss of £49.87 to a £1 level stake at SP (-2.54% on turnover). That loss becomes a big profit at Betfair SP (+£431.84 after 2% commission). The expected number of winners based on their odds was 233.48 giving a WAX (winners above expected) score of 16.52 and an A/E (actual over expected) score of 1.07 (anything above 1.0 is good).
Splitting the results by handicaps and non-handicaps makes interesting reading…
Dawson’s mounts in handicaps show a profit at SP (+£18.89), while the non-handicappers returned a loss of £68.76. Both returned good profits at Betfair SP. The non-handicappers included 155 newcomers (producing just seen winners), who were no doubt in need of the experienced and given considerate introductions…
…these returned a loss of £92.42 at SP and a loss of £79.12 at Betfair SP.
Splitting Dawson’s mounts by turf and all-weather is also revealing…
…his strike-rate is higher on the all-weather (13.57% as opposed to 12.24%) and his rides show a profit at SP of £71.14, whereas his turf mounts are in the red (-£121.01). His A/E score is higher on the all-weather too (1.13 compared to 1.04).
Looking at Dawson’s rides by trainer produced some surprising results. A large number of his mounts (278) have come for Roger Varian, but they under-performed. Here’s his full list of rides by trainer (15+ rides only)…
Summary
Backing Ray Dawson’s rides, excluding those trained by Roger Varian and those making their racecourse debuts, produced the following results since 1st June 2025…
…a profit of 6.44% on turnover at SP or 34.43% at Betfair SP (after commission).
The all-weather runners did especially well…
