Evaluating Jockeys by Percentage of Rivals Beaten, Part 2

June 25, 2025
Dave Renham

This is the second half of an analysis of jockey performance using the Percentage of Rivals Beaten metric, following this one I wrote back at the beginning of June, writes Dave Renham. This time, I will put the same 35 jockeys – those that have had the greatest number of rides on average per year over the past four years - under the microscope.

In this article:

Introduction

The data has been taken from UK flat racing (turf + AW) from 2021 to 2024. I have also limited findings to horses the jockeys rode sent off at an Industry Starting Price of 20/1 or less in order to try and eliminate most of the horses that had little or no chance. Also, very big priced winners skew the data.

In the first article I primarily examined the data by using and comparing numbers based on Percentage of Rivals Beaten (PRB). PRB is a calculation based on a horse's finishing position in relation to field size. It makes key distinctions between a horse finishing, say, fourth in seven-horse race (PRB 50%, three rivals beaten, beaten by three rivals) and finishing fourth in a sixteen-horse race (PRB 80%, twelve rivals beaten, beaten by three rivals). We express the PRB as a number between 0 and 1. So, in the examples above, 50% is 0.5 and 80% is 0.8.

For this piece I will be primarily using PRB once more, and I will also be looking at strike rates, profit/loss, returns and A/E indices where appropriate. Using other metrics in conjunction with the PRBs should help to give us a clearer overall picture.

Before I start, I noted last time that certain jockey to jockey comparisons were difficult to evaluate from a PRB perspective due to what I will call ‘jockey price bias’. Essentially, some jockeys have more shorter priced rides than others, and thus conversely, other jockeys have more bigger priced rides. This could potentially skew the PRB, so it is something I am aware of and will address in what follows.

My starting point today is going to field size.

Number of race runners

It should be noted that in races of 2 to 6 runners the average PRB figure for all jockeys riding horses priced 20/1 or shorter stands at 0.55; for 7 to 9 runners, it is 0.57; for 10 to 12 it is 0.59 and for 13+ runner races it is 0.60. Knowing these figures is important to help evaluate each jockeys’ performance within each 'number of runners' grouping. However, based on my findings last time connected with jockey price bias, I also need to consider the average PRB for each jockey to provide better context. Using these two factors in tandem I have used a mathematical formula to establish what are positive PRBs and which are negative for each individual. As in the first article, positives will be highlighted in green, negatives in red:

Let’s look at the very small field size of 2 to 6 runners first. The PRB positives highlight Ghiani, Havlin, Loughnane, Stott and Watson. Let’s see if that translates into an overall profit:

Four of the five made a blind profit with only Rob Havlin in the red. When digging deeper into Jason Watson’s figures it is impressive to note that he made a profit in three of the four years, and his losing year was only 5p in the £. Also, most of Watson's winners were at the shorter priced end of market; if we restrict to runners priced 8/1 or less his record actually improves further to 63 wins from 233 (SR 27.04%) for a profit of £ 50.78 (ROI +21.79).

Meanwhile, Kevin Stott managed four profitable years in a row which is even more eye-catching. Finally for this group of jockeys, geegeez-sponsored rider Marco Ghiani proved himself to be an exceptional judge of pace in these smaller field contests winning 19 of 46 (SR 41.3%) on horses that took the lead early.

Time to look at the jockeys that had a negative PRB. Here are their figures:

All six made a loss although Oisin Murphy and Sean Levey's deficits were modest. Murphy and Danny Muscutt struggled when the runners were bigger prices: restricting to horses priced 10/1 to 20/1 saw Murphy win just once from 40 for losses of 68p in the £, and Muscutt was beaten on all 40 horses he rode in that price range.

There are four other jockeys I would like to highlight when racing in field sizes of 2 to 6 runners and they are Joe Fanning, Paul Mulrennan, Saffie Osborne and David Probert. The ‘graph’ below shows they all had very similar win strike rates (red numbers) and made decent returns (BSP ROI%, black numbers) too:

It should be noted that both Saffie Osborne and Paul Mulrennan were very good from the front in small fields. Both won 35% of the time in such small field races when taking the early lead. It seems likely, then, that both are good judges of pace.

I am not going to go into any depth regarding the 7 to 9 and 10 to 12 runner stats. However, I will take a quick look at the bigger field contests of 13 or more runners in terms of the jockeys who achieved a positive PRB. In bigger fields, being poorly positioned and/or avoiding trouble in running becomes far more relevant. I am guessing that some jockeys are simply better than others at avoiding trouble in running or being poorly positioned.

In terms of those who had positive PRBs the table below shows the splits:

Despite the positive PRBs the results of Callum Shepherd, and particularly Kieran O’Neill, were not good for punters. We cannot really expect all eight to have returned a profit, but the losses for those two were steeper than I expected. On the flip side four made a blind profit, of which three (Jason Hart, Billy Loughnane and Rossa Ryan) produced a very significant profit. The other two made a small loss.

These figures do highlight that PRBs on their own, for this type of research at least, can be flawed. This is the same for any metric – for example a high strike rate does not guarantee profits, a good return on investment can be skewed due to a single big priced winner, and so on. That's why reviewing different metrics where possible is the ideal.

Going back to the table, Rossa Ryan’s figures are outstanding across the board. His returns (ROI%) to BSP by year are shown below:

I believe that one of the reasons for his success in bigger fields has been his ability to win on hold up horses. The win percentage for all jockeys combined in 13+ runner events when they held their mounts up stood at just 7.5% in the study period; Ryan’s was nearly double that on 14.2%. Not surprisingly, his strike rate on hold ups was the highest of all the jockeys. There is definitely something in this because Jason Hart, who also made significant profits in 13+ runner events recorded a strike of 13.6% on hold ups which is the second best of all the jockeys. Being able to manoeuvre your mount successfully through traffic in bigger fields will naturally lead to more wins overall.

Race Class

I want to look at class of race next with the starting focus on the better quality Class 1 and 2 races. I have split their results by price in order to help eliminate any bias. Combining the data for both classes, as some jockeys have limited Class 1 data within certain price bands, helps to get more meaningful datasets. I have chosen four ISP price bands – 7/2 or shorter, 4/1 to 7/1, 15/2 to 10/1, and 11/1 or bigger.

The average figures for all jockeys in the list are shown in blue at the bottom of each column and, because we are dealing with price bands, we have a more level playing field to compare one jockey’s PRB with another. Therefore, I have highlighted any PRB that is at least 3% above the average or at least 3% below the average. The 3% ‘above group’ (positive) are highlighted in green, the 3% ‘below group’ (negative) in red. Any PRB with an asterisk (*) means the dataset was limited so we should probably ignore that number. Here are the findings:

Connor Beasley and Danny Tudhope stand out with three greens and no reds. Those two jockeys seem to have excelled in the better class races, at least according to the PRBs. If we look at their profit and loss figures, we see that Beasley was +£90.43 (ROI +34.8%); while Tudhope was +£60.11 (ROI +9.6%). At the other end of the scale David Allen and Sam James have three reds and no greens. Overall, they lost 17p and 12p in the £ respectively.

What this PRB research is telling us is that some jockeys are almost certainly better than their win rates suggest, they just don’t ride enough horses with good chances. Take Saffie Osborne as an example in Class 1 and 2 races when riding bigger priced runners. Her PRB for the 11/1 to 20/1 price band was an excellent 0.52 qualifying for a ‘green’. However, when you look at her actual overall record with these runners she has won just once in 75 attempts for huge losses if you were backing them all to win. However, if you had backed her horses to place on Betfair she would have made a profit! Her rides within this subset have been outperforming their odds more often than not.

Let's now look at the lower end of the class scale, namely Class 5 and 6 races. I'm using the same price splits and the same colour coding:

There are fewer reds and greens here in total compared to the higher grade of race. James Doyle, David Egan and Rob Havlin have hit two greens, while Joe Fanning's performance looks more modest with three reds.

Courses by Jockey

Finally, in this piece, although there are still plenty of stats to share, I am looking at a selection of the 35 jockeys and comparing their PRB figures at different courses. This should be a very effective use of PRB data as a comparison tool because the comparison is with the individual jockey themselves. I am only using courses where a jockey had enough rides to be meaningful. I am not sharing the course data of all 35 jockeys due to space, but more importantly due to personal time constraints!

David Allan

A look at Allan’s PRBs – the graph below shows the results:

The PRBs range from 0.53 at Haydock and Musselburgh to 0.63 at Pontefract and Southwell. Indeed, Southwell is the course where Allen fared best in terms of profitability having had 25 winners from 97 rides (SR 25.8%) for a BSP profit of £98.13 (ROI +101.16). He did not made a blind profit at Pontefract, but this is probably more down to luck as he had numerous seconds (22 second places compared with 12 wins from 104 rides). Some of those seconds were at fair prices such as BSP 10.63, 11.83, 18.5, 21 and 30. Going back to Haydock and Musselburgh where he had his lowest PRBs, both showed significant losses of 52p and 25p in the £ respectively.

Connor Beasley

A look at Connor Beasley now:

The one course well below the rest in terms of PRBs, Carlisle, has been a poor hunting ground for winners for Beasley, too. He had just had five winners from 68 (SR 7.4%) for losses of £37.33 (ROI -54.9%). The highest PRB came from Southwell, but Beasley made a loss there; although he made an 18% profit if backing place only to Betfair Place SP. Beasley hit a PRB of 0.61 at Beverley, Doncaster and Thirsk, the first two named both producing a blind profit. His record at Doncaster was the best with 16 wins from 82 (SR 19.5%) for a profit of £38.29 (ROI +46.7%).

William Buick

William Buick is the next jockey to share – for his figures I have put them in a table. The five highest have been highlighted in green:

The five greens (Haydock 0.66, Kempton 0.68, Leicester 0.66, Windsor 0.66, Yarmouth 0.69) have produced the following:

Four of the five saw a blind profit with only Kempton failing. However, in the better races (Class 1 and 2) at the Sunbury track he made a small profit thanks to 10 wins from 28 (SR 35.7%) for a profit of £4.65 (ROI +16.6%). There are five more positive course angles for Buick to share which I will share in the following table:

Hollie Doyle

Hollie’s PRBs were perhaps a tad disappointing as I’m a big advocate of hers and of women’s sport generally. Having said that, her overall record speaks for itself and her win percentages across different price bands match up well with other leading jockeys. For her course PRB data I am sharing all the qualifying courses combined with other key metrics. The courses are ordered by PRB highest to lowest:

What this table illustrates, other than Doyle’s individual course PRBs, is that four of the five courses with the highest PRBs produced a blind profit – Bath, Chepstow, Brighton and Kempton. Not only that, the further you go down the list the redder the BSP PL and ROI columns become. The correlation between PRBs and profit/loss and return on investment is more positive than negative.

There are a few extras to share as far as Hollie is concerned - at Bath her record in handicaps has been excellent with 14 wins from 61 (SR 23%) for a profit of £21.58 (ROI +35.4%). Sticking with Bath her 15 winners came from 14 different trainers. Not only that, but her boss Archie Watson is not one of them! At Chepstow she is 8 from 23 for Watson producing a return of 91p in the £, and on favourites at the same track she won 13 of 25 (SR 52%) for a profit of £12.50 (ROI +36.7%).

Joe Fanning

Joe Fanning is still going strong at 54 years old. The PRBs for the courses he rides the most are shown below:

Let’s look at more metrics at the four courses with PRB figures of over 0.60:

As we can see there is excellent correlation between the PRB figures and profit/return columns with all four in profit. Three of the four had very high A/E indices which is equally positive.

In terms of negatives the two courses with the lowest PRBs Hamilton (0.49) and Wolves (0.50) produced the following overall results:

There have been significant losses at both courses, with Hamilton’s win rate particularly poor also.

Oisin Murphy

Oisin Murphy has been Champion jockey four times in the last six years, and he is undoubtably one of the top riders around. There are 18 courses where he has had enough rides / rivals and the PRBs are as follows (courses with a PRB figure of 0.67 or higher are highlighted in green):

The 0.71 figure for Newcastle stands out and his overall record there is impressive as can be seen in the table below. The table shows the results for the six courses with his highest PRBs:

Four of the six secured a profit to BSP, with two (Kempton and Yarmouth) showing very small losses. It is interesting that four of the six courses were all-weather tracks. It is also worth noting that when riding for Andrew Balding at Newcastle Murphy had a 50% strike rate (9 wins from 18) for a profit of £30.50 (ROI +169.5%). For Hugo Palmer he rode six times at Salisbury, winning five, while at Wolves the pair were five from 10. Admittedly these are small samples but eye-catching, nonetheless.

Saffie Osborne

Saffie Osborne has had some solid looking PRBs across both articles and it will be interesting to drill down into her course PRBs. The graph below shows the different course figures:

The four courses with the highest PRBs were Southwell (0.66), Newmarket (0.65), Brighton (0.64) and Newcastle (0.62). The table shows the results for these four courses:

Osborne recorded excellent profits at all four, with very high A/E indices showing positive correlation with the PRBs. She has ridden those four courses very well in the past four years.

The three courses with the lowest PRBs - Doncaster (0.50), Bath (0.51) and Chelmsford (0.52) - saw returns correlate positively too as each showed significant losses. Losses stood at 30p, 49p and 26p in the £ respectively.

Rossa Ryan

Ryan is the last jockey I am looking at here and his course PRB figures are shown in the table below:

The four highest PRBs are highlighted in green, Chelmsford (0.65), Newbury (0.64), Wolverhampton (0.64) and Lingfield (0.63). Here were his overall results at these four tracks.

All four again were in profit suggesting positive correlation once more between the PRBs and other key metrics. For the record most of his rides at Lingfield came on the all-weather (AW) and his AW ROI% at the track stood at 11%.

The lowest PRB occurred when racing at Sandown (0.51) – his overall record there has been relatively poor, as one might suspect. He had 11 winners from 89 (SR 12.4%) for a loss of £30.71 (ROI 34.5%).

Phew! That was a lot of research and a lot of stats.

Ultimately, as punters we 'live or die' by our final profit/loss figure. Having a high PRB does not necessarily equal profit, but this article has shown that higher PRBs tend to outperform lower ones on the ledger front. As I have always said, the more metrics we can use the better. PRBs are definitely a metric we should use where possible in combination with others: they add a lot more depth, especially in smaller sample sizes.

- DR