Billy Loughnane: ‘The Kid’ in Numbers

Analysing the Performance of 'Wonderkid' Billy Loughnane 

The official 2026 UK Flat Championship started at the Guineas Festival on Saturday 2nd May and it will end on British Champions Day at Ascot on Saturday 17th October 2026, writes Dave Renham. The Champion will be decided on the number of winners ridden in both Flat and All-Weather races between those two dates.  Hence, as I pen this, roughly a week before publication, there are around ten more weeks to go and, currently, Billy Loughnane is nine wins ahead of Oisin Murphy in the Flat Jockeys Championship. [Update as of publication date: Loughnane has 96 winners, Murphy 82]

Timeline

In what follows I will dig into the record of this young star of the racing world. However, before that let me give some detailed background to the man himself.

Billy Loughnane was born in Ireland in March 2006 and is the son of Daniel Mark Loughnane, a UK-based Irish trainer.  The family moved to Staffordshire at the end of 2011 before relocating in 2017 to a yard near Kidderminster. Being the son of a racehorse trainer, Billy grew up immersed in racing. His brother Jack also rides, and Billy began riding out while he was still at school. He competed in pony racing, winning the All‑Weather Pony Racing Championship in 2022, which is seen as a key stepping stone to professional riding. Here are some highlights from his short but steeply ascendant career to date:

2022 – Loughnane has his first ride in October 2022 on Starfighter at Newcastle. The horse was unfancied and finished a respectable fifth of 12. It would take five weeks for Billy to land his first winner, on his 27^th ride, when Swiss Rowe won at Wolverhampton on 28^th November 2022 at odds of 28/1.

2023 – By the beginning of the 2023 turf season Loughnane's star was rising fast and, on 1^st April that year, he won the Brocklesby Stakes at Doncaster aboard Doddie’s Impact. Five weeks later he was having his first ride in a classic, the youngest jockey since Lester Piggott to do so, partnering Sweet Harmony in the 1000 Guineas. In June of that year, he rode at Royal Ascot for the first time and although he failed to hit the jackpot in his eight rides he steered horses to 2nd and 4th (of 29) in major handicaps. Billy rode out his claim on 8 September 2023, taking less than 11 months to notch the required 95 wins.

2024 – Loughnane achieved his first victories at Royal Ascot at the 2024 meeting, landing successes on Rashabar and Soprano. By the end of the year, he had ridden a remarkable 162 winners from 1174 rides.

2025 – Registered his first Group 1 victory, for Godolphin’s Charlie Appleby aboard Rebel’s Romance in Germany, and became Annual Flat Champion Jockey achieving a record-breaking 222 winners in a single calendar year, surpassing Kieren Fallon’s 2003 record of 221.

2026 – This year so far, he has ridden four Group 1 winners in the UK with three of them coming on Bow Echo. The last of these successes was at Glorious Goodwood in the Sussex Stakes, one of the most stunning victories seen at this iconic venue.

Loughnane already rides like a seasoned pro despite his tender years and, based on what we have seen so far, he could become one of the greats.

 

It's time now to delve into the data. The study period covers Loughnane's entire UK flat (including all-weather) career from that first Newcastle ride in October 2022 to the beginning of August 2026. Profits have been calculated to Betfair Starting Price (BSP) less 2% commission on all winning bets.

 

Overall stats

Below is a table showing all of Loughnane’s rides in the UK to date:

 

 

His strike rate has been around the one win in six mark and overall losses to BSP currently stand at just over 2 pence in the £.

 

Results by Year

Let me share the yearly breakdown next:

 

 

As can be seen, the last couple of years have shown modest losses, which is almost certainly down to his popularity increasing and being overbet.

Indeed, if we look at the average prices of his runners by individual year, we can see that he has ridden more and more fancied runners as the years have passed. The SP figures in the graph are decimal odds so the 16.0 figure for 2023 is equivalent to 15/1.

 

 

In addition to these yearly SP averages showing this trend, we can see a similar pattern when analysing the percentage of favourites he has ridden by year. The graph below shows these splits.

 

 

In 2026, just under one third of Loughnane’s rides have been on the favourite, compared with less than one in ten in 2022.

 

Results by Price (SP)

I want to show a breakdown of the SP prices of his mounts. I have used Industry SP splits as I used the Geegeez Query Tool for the research for this piece. For the record, profit/losses have still been calculated to BSP.

 

 

The vast majority of Loughnane's rides have been priced 10/1 or lower, and backing all of these runners blind would have yielded a small loss of around a penny in the £. The 11/1 to 18/1 bracket turned a profit to BSP, while the biggest priced runners - those 20/1 or bigger - have produced quite significant losses.

In terms of market position, here are the splits:

 

 

Having seen the figures for the 20/1+ shots earlier, we could have expected the fifth or bigger in the betting group to have made a loss. On favourites Billy has been close to breaking even, while horses second, third and fourth in the market have all nudged into a very small profit.

 

Results by Race Code

I want to compare now Loughnane's record on the turf versus the AW. Here are the figures:

 

 

He has had a slightly higher strike rate on the all-weather, but in terms of returns his rides on the turf have lost punters less, virtually breaking even. Let me dig a bit deeper into these numbers by looking at some individual course data.

 

Results by Course

As we know some jockeys seem to ride some courses better than others. Let’s see what the Loughnane stats show us. For a course to qualify he would have needed to have ridden in 40 or more races there:

 

 

The Ascot bottom line has been skewed considerably by a BSP 120.6 winner, but the remaining courses have not seen big priced winners significantly affecting the profit/loss figures. In terms of the all-weather, he has ridden well at Wolverhampton despite having quite poor figures over the two sprint trips of 5 and 6 furlongs. At the Midlands track over 7f or more Loughnane has piloted 119 winners from 555 runners (SR 21.4%) for a healthy profit of £135.94 (ROI +24.5%).

Sticking with the AW, at Kempton he has actually had a higher strike rate in handicap races than non-handicaps which is very unusual. His handicap record at the track reads 47 wins from 291 rides (SR 16.2%) for a profit of £57.12 (ROI +19.6%).

Meanwhile, on the grass at Goodwood Billy has a fine record when his mounts have been either favourite or second favourite. Combining these two market positions at the Sussex track has seen seven winners from 23 (SR 30.4%) for a profit of £11.82 (ROI +51.4%).

Newmarket has been a less kind track to Loughnane overall, and his record with favourites is actually extremely poor. When steering the market leader he has won only 13 of 46 rides (SR 28.3%) for quite hefty losses of £18.30 (ROI -39.8%).

One way to help assess how a jockey has ridden particular courses is to look at the A/E index which is a metric that determines value by dividing the actual number of winners by the expected number of winners based on their betting odds. Anything greater than 1.00 suggests potential value across the subset of horses analysed. Below is a graph showing the courses where Loughnane has achieved an A/E index of above 1.00 across the period of study:

 

 

Seven courses have made ‘the list’ and, considering I am basing the A/E indices on Industry SP, these are courses that Loughnane has almost certainly ridden well. For the record, he made a blind profit at five of the seven.

 

Results by Class of Race

A look next at class of race to see what we can glean from these stats:

 

 

Class 1 races have proved extremely profitable but in truth that BSP 120.6 winner was responsible for the vast majority of the profits. Having said that, Billy has made a blind individual profit in each of the Class 1 race groupings - Group 1, 2, 3 and Listed. He has, though, struggled somewhat in Class 2 events, especially non-handicaps, where losses have been close to 60p in the £.

 

Results by Trainer

Loughnane has ridden for 269 different trainers in his career to date, from which ten he has paired up at least 60 times. Those trainers are shown below (listed in alphabetical order):

 

 

He has a good overall record with his father, although this year to date his mounts would have lost blind bettors close to 30p in the £. His partnership with George Boughey has seen some amazing race wins but overall the partnership has produced a small loss. The sweet spot for the Loughnane/Boughey combination has been with horses priced between 8/1 and 14/1. This cohort have produced 19 winners from 142 runners (SR 13.4%) for a heathy profit of £122.97 (ROI +86.6%).

 

Run Style 

Finally, a look at the results for different run styles. We would expect based on past data that Loughnane would have had the most success on front/early leaders. Let’s see the splits:

 

 

As expected, front runners (leaders) have produced the best profit figure, although in terms of win rate front runners and prominent racers have both won close to 21% of the time. Of course, we do not know pre-race what run style the horse will produce, but clearly the more forward a Loughnane horse is early, the better. In general, hold up horses have struggled.

 

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So, there we have it. As with most jockeys who become very successful, it is not easy to find profitable areas once the public latches on. However, a good starting point would be to ignore any runners priced 20/1 or bigger and focus on those who have better chances as reflected in the market. From there we can use other race reading angles to hopefully narrow down possible selections and hence help us find some horses offering value.

- DR

Other Recent Posts by This Author:

• Course Topography: Uphill Finishes
• The Impact of Last Time Out Run Style
• Combining Pace and SR Ratings, Part 2
• More on Combining Pace and SR Ratings
• A Look at Summer All-Weather Racing