Marco Ghiani

This season tells a similar story. Ghiani has ridden 81 winners from 613 races — roughly 1 in every 8, or 13% — which is a solid return across a high volume of rides. What that number also shows is that he is being kept busy, and busy jockeys are trusted jockeys. In a sport where opportunity is everything, getting on 613 horses in a single year means trainers are picking up the phone and asking for him.

His most reliable working relationship is with trainer Stuart Williams, and the numbers behind that partnership are worth sitting with. From 149 races together they have produced 25 winners — that is 17%, or roughly 1 in every 6. When two people find a rhythm in racing, it tends to show up exactly like this: a win rate that quietly outperforms the average, built race by race over time.

A couple of other things stand out. On wet, muddy ground — the kind of heavy going that some jockeys and horses alike find miserable — Ghiani has won 4 from 8 races, a remarkable 50% return that suggests he either reads those conditions particularly well or rides with a composure that suits horses who need careful handling through the mud. And at Salisbury, a sharp, testing track that exposes any weakness in a jockey's judgement, he has turned out 3 winners from just 6 rides. Half his rides at that course have ended in victory. That is the sort of local mastery that gets noticed.

His partnership with the horse Lizzana also deserves a mention — 2 wins from just 3 races together is the kind of record that suggests a genuine understanding between horse and rider, the sort of thing that makes trainers keep coming back to the same combination.