Patrick J Flynn

This season, though, things have been tougher. Flynn has sent out 122 runners and found the winner's enclosure just 10 times — that's roughly 1 in every 12 races, or an 8% win rate. To put that in context, last year he was winning 1 in every 7, so the drop is noticeable. Whether that's down to the horses he's had available, bad luck, or just the brutal unpredictability of the sport, it's the kind of dip every trainer goes through and the kind that tends to self-correct when the right horses come along.

One clear bright spot is his relationship with jockey Robyn Donaghue-Leahy. Of the 52 races they've tackled together, they've won 6 — a 12% win rate, or roughly 1 in 9. That might not sound spectacular on paper, but it's meaningfully better than Flynn's overall numbers this season, which suggests the two have developed a genuine working understanding. In racing, a trainer and jockey who trust each other can get more out of a horse than the bare statistics suggest, and this partnership looks like one worth watching.

If you want to find Flynn at his best, look for him when the ground is normal — not too wet, not too dry, just standard conditions. In those circumstances he's won 4 from 25 races this season, a 16% win rate, or 1 in every 6. That's almost double his overall average, and it's a meaningful edge. Plenty of trainers are ground-dependent without ever really knowing it; Flynn seems to have horses that genuinely thrive when conditions are fair.

The one partnership that hasn't clicked yet is with Lion Of The Desert — three races together, zero wins. That's a small sample, but it's a reminder that not every combination works, no matter how much promise is there on paper. Flynn is still a young trainer by the sport's standards, and 42 winners in four years gives him every reason to be confident the better numbers will return.