James Walton

The most telling detail in Walton's record is his partnership with West Lawn. Two wins from 28 races together sounds like a quiet statistic, but 28 races is a substantial shared journey for a small yard. It suggests West Lawn is a horse Walton knows intimately and keeps coming back to — and it says something about the size of his operation that one horse accounts for such a significant chunk of his runners overall.

Where Walton does show a flicker of something more promising is on normal ground. He wins with 1 in every 7 runners in those conditions — 14% — which is a meaningful step up from his overall figures and hints that he may be learning to pick his spots carefully. Small trainers who punch above their weight tend to do so by being selective, and if Walton is starting to identify where his horses genuinely belong, that is a useful skill to be developing in year four.