Richenda Ford

The most important relationship in her yard right now is with jockey Harry Kimber. Together they have turned out 3 winners from 15 races — that's a 20% win rate, or 1 in every 5 rides — which is genuinely strong by any measure. When a trainer and jockey build that kind of understanding, it tends to compound over time: they learn how to place horses, how to read a race, how to get the best out of each other. Ford and Kimber look like a partnership with room to grow.

Her longest-running association is with Master Mikey Dee, a horse she has sent out 19 times — the most of any horse in her yard. One win from 19 races together tells its own story: this is a horse that has tested her patience and her problem-solving. The fact that she keeps running him suggests she believes in him, and in training, that kind of loyalty to a horse's potential is often what eventually pays off.

One detail that stands out is how well Ford's horses perform on very wet, muddy ground. She has won 1 from just 3 races in those conditions — a 33% win rate, or 1 in every 3. That is a small sample, but it hints that she knows how to prepare horses for a specific test. Wet ground is demanding and unforgiving; horses that handle it well are usually fit, strong, and well-schooled. If the rain comes down this winter, Ford's runners are worth a second look.

She is still in the early chapters of what could be a long career, and no one is pretending she is challenging the sport's elite trainers yet. But the improvement is real, the Kimber partnership is producing results, and there is a growing sense of a trainer finding her feet — and finding them quickly.