A Statistical Review of UK & Ireland Flat Racing in 2023: Part 3 Jockeys

Part 3 of our statistical review of UK & Ireland Flat racing in 2023 will focus on the guys and girls doing the steering. It’s time for the Jockey Column.

Rossa Ryan was the busiest jockey in 2023, with 1076 rides. It’s great to see him get the rewards for all that effort by netting his 200th winner of the season only last night.

This time last year, Billy Loughnane had a 7lb claim. Well, that had well and truly disappeared by mid-September. He was the busiest of all Apprentice jockeys throughout 2023 — no surprise at how much value he proved to be for that claim.

Ryan Moore was top on Win Strike Rate, returning 109 wins from 429 rides; 25.41% SR. Rossa Ryan takes the title for most wins, now hitting the 200 mark — with more rides since i took the data to produce the table.

Rossa Ryan was the most undervalued jockey by the betting market. Win proability derived from Betfair SP expected him to reutn 171.19 wins, he returned +27.81 above that with 199 (at the time of writing).

Despite the high profile press, the market didn’t catch onto Billy Loughnane for a long while. He delivered +15.30 wins above market expectation with 130.

Ryan Moore won the most stakes races in 2023; 44 stakes wins from 197 stakes rides, Frankie in 2nd with 23 stakes wins from 82 stakes level rides.

It’s Moore again as the top top jockey at the Group 1 table; 13 Group 1 wins from 47 Group 1 rides in the UK & Ireland. Dettori second again with 7 Group 1 wins from 28 rides.

Jockey Improvement Index

A useful measure of jockey ability is the improvement that they are able to generate from horses when they sit on them the first time. Only the very top top jockeys actually generate any immediate positive improvement from the baseline ORs of the horses that they sit on that first time, so it is a measure of exceptional riding ability.

We evaluated this by only using horses that had an Official Rating at the time of the first ride from the jockey. Then comparing what the subsequent Official Rating for the horse was in their next race.

The table reinforces what we perceive as the best jockeys within the jockey column, with a couple of interesting entries included as well.

Ryan Moore improved horses the most just by having his first time on them. The horses he rode first time had an Average OR of 92.50 and after that first Moore ride they had an Average OR of 93.50. Across 90 rides he improved his rides on average by +1lb.

The Top 3 is rounded our largely as we would expect. William Buick came in at #2, improving his 231 rides on average by +0.62lbs (80.07OR -> 80.69OR), Oisin Murphy in #3 improving his rides by +0.56lbs (73.77OR -> 74.33OR).

James Doyle has been the best jockey outside that Top 3 group for a long while now (not including Farewell Tour Frankie), so it’s no surprise to see him come in at #4.

Billy Lee, Jack Mitchell and young Irish Apprentice Sean D Bowen (not the jumps jockey) are the ones you need to take away from that table. Young Sean D Bowen had a breakout year in Ireland this year; 24 wins from 236 rins @ 10.17% SR and improved his first time rides on average by +0.17lbs. That’s a remarkable result for an Apprentice rider.

Billy Lee has been one of the best jockeys in Ireland for a number of years now and it’s no surprise that he rides for some of the shrewdest trainers in the game in Paddy Twomey, Wille McCreery and Natalia Lupini.

I’ve been a Jack Mitchell fan for ages, and his stats of improving rides by +0.19lbs back that up.

Adjusting for Trainer Factors

A challenge with Jockey Ability Measures is being able to separate out the Trainer ability factor from Jockey ability. To do this we take the baseline Trainer Performance level and then compare the Jockey Over / Under Performance comparatively against it. (Thanks again to Rob McSkimming who has a better version of this metric than me)

Our methodology here was to take the rolling 3 year average performance of the trainer using %RivalsBeaten² as our primary metric. We then compare the %RivalsBeaten² by jockeys across all their races against this rolling trainer baseline, this helps to show true jockey uplift vs. the core ability of the trainers that they are riding for.

The top performing jockey on this metric will be a surprise. And it’s some story to see him there.

Our #1 jockey in 2023 at uplifting the performance of horses compared to the baseline performance of trainers he was riding for is Irish jockey Wesley Joyce.

Across all races Wesley Joyce returned a %RB² figure of 40.37% of rivals beaten, vs. a rolling average of trainers he was riding for of 33.11%. Joyce was uplifting the performance of those horses by +7.26%.

Joyce is an Apprentice in Ireland, who only had his first ride of 2023 on the 07th August. At the 2022 Galway Festival he suffered a serious fall that led to a period in Intensive Care with injuries including broken ribs, a punctured lung, a broken shoulder and a fractured larynx. It took him 1 year to get back to the racetrack after that fall. Just watch the video below to see what that first winner back meant to him and what he has to deal with post-injury.

Honourable shoutouts to Colin Keane +7.12%, Oisin Murphy +6.51%, Ben Curtis +6.04%, Billy Lee +5.83%, Jack Mitchell +5.50% and Rossa Ryan +5.43%.

Apprentices Robert Whearty and Taylor Fisher should be jockeys you keep on side, whom are value for their claim and can make it in the Professional ranks. Whearty uplifted performance by +5.34% RB2 and Fisher by +4.78% RB2 across rides in 2023.

Ryan Moore probably gets the best jockey of 2023 award. But i’d be inclined to give it to Wesley Joyce just for that video alone.