Born in Dublin on September 24, 1970, Joseph ‘Joe’ Fanning has the dubious distinction of being the most prolific jockey never to have won the Flat Jockeys’ Championship. On September 23, 2023, he rode Capital Theory, trained by Charlie Johnston, to victory at Ayr, thereby taking his career tally to 2,811 winners. In so doing, he moved ahead of Joe Mercer, into seventh place, on the all-time list, on which he is preceded by Sir Gordon Richards, Pat Eddery, Lester Piggott, Willie Carson, Doug Smith and Frankie Dettori, who collectively won 61 jockeys’ titles.

A graduate of the Racing Academy and Centre of Education (RACE) at the Curragh, Co. Kildare, Fanning moved from Ireland to Britain in 1988, becoming apprenticed to Tommy ‘Squeak’ Fairhurst in Middleham, North Yorkshire. Originally a National Hunt jockey, he rode his first winner on British soil, Holdenby, in a handicap hurdle at Sedgefield on November 14, 1989. However, two fractured vertebrae sustained in a first-flight fall from Pansong in a selling hurdle at Newcastle on March 19. 1990 prompted a change of heart. Fanning stayed with Fairhurst for the better part of four years, but, in 1990, began an association with another Middleham trainer, Mark Johnston, who had moved to Kingsley Park in 1988.

The association with Johnston would become formalised in 1995, but it was not until 1999 that Fanning managed to ride over 50 winners in a season and not until 2006 that he managed over 100 winners. Nvevertheless, he has remained at Kingsley Park for nearly three decades and remains stable jockey to Charlie Johnston, who now holds the licence outright, having previously shared it with his father. Fanning enjoyed his most successful season, numerically, in 2012, when he rode 188 winners, and he has three Group 1 winners to his name, the most significant of which was Subjectivist in the Gold Cup at Ascot on June 17, 2021.

A graduate from the sphere of point-to-point racing, Jack Tudor started work for Christian Williams at Ogmore Farm, on the outskirts of Ogmore-by-Sea in the Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales in June 2018. Still only 16, he made an almost immediate impression under Rules, finishing fourth on his first ride, Uno Mas, in an amateur riders’ handicap hurdle at Exeter on October 23, 2018 and opened his account when winning a similar event on the same horse at Fakenham the following month. Indeed, Uno Mas would provide Tudor with three of his five winners, from just 10 rides, in his inaugural season and, in August 2019, he took out a conditional jockeys licence and joined the professional ranks.

On December 27, 2019, Tudor made headline news when achieving what he later described as the ‘unbelievable’ winning the Welsh Grand National on Potters Corner, trained by Williams, in his first season as a conditional jockey. His has since recorded several high-profile successes, including the Eider Chase at Newcastle, Scottish Grand National ar Ayr and Bet365 Gold Cup at Sandown on Kitty’s Light, again trained by Williams in the latter part of the 2022/23 season.

More recently, in April 2023, David Pipe announced that Tudor would be filling the vacancy left by Tom Scudamore, who retired the previous February, as stable jockey at Pond House Stables in Nicholashayne, Devon. Of his new appointment, Tudor said, ‘It’s obviously a big move for me and I’m looking forward to it and excited to see what happens.’.He did, however, pay tribute to his former employer and expressed a wish to ride as many horses saddled by Williams as possible. In 2023/24, Tudor rode a career-best 47 winners from 395 rides at a strike rate of 12% and fared better still in 2024/25, with 18 winners from 85 rides at a strike rate of 21%.

At the time of writing, Henry Brooke lies in third place in the 2024/25 National Hunt Jockeys’ Championship, having ridden 21 winners from 99 rides at a distinctly healthy strike rate of 21%. Indeed, the former Champion Conditional Jockey has established himself as one of the leading riders in the North of England, but it would be fair to say that he has experienced more than his fair share of ups and downs on recent years.

On October 8, 2016, Brooke suffered a broken collarbone, nine broken ribs and a collapsed lung after his mount, Old Storm, fell at the second fence in a novices’ chase at Hexham. He was treated by medical staff at the course before being transferred, by air ambulance, to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, where he was briefly placed into an induced coma. Four years later, in December 2020, Brooke revealed how close he had come to being paralysed in an apparently ‘routine’ fall while riding work for Oliver Greenall at Stockton Hall Farm in Malpas, Cheshire the previous month. A susequent hospital check-up revealed that he had, in fact, fractured five vertebrae, three in his neck and two in his back. Multiple fractures in his hand, which required surgery and rehabilitation, served as a further setback in 2023, but Brooke has become renowned for his bouncebackability.

On February 27, 2021, just three months after suffering the aforementioned serious neck injury, Brooke won the Eider Chase at Newcastle Sam’s Adventure, trained by Brian Ellison, a victory that left him, by his own admission, ‘a bit lost for words’. Following another victory, on White Rhino at Cheltenham on December 15, 2023, he twice broke down in tears on live television following the death of his previous mount, Gesskille, on the cross-country course at Prestbury Park.

Billy Loughnane is the son of Tipperary-born trainer Daniel Mark Loughnane, who, since 2017, has been based at Rock Farm, a state-of-the-art facility in Kidderminster, Worcestershire. A graduate from the sphere of pony racing, which he readily acknowledges was a ‘massive help’ in his development as a jockey, Loughnane Jnr. did not have his first ride under the Rules of Racing until October 24, 2022. On that occasion, he finished fifth on Starfighter, trained by his father, in a handicap at Newcastle, but chalked up his first winner, Swiss Rowe, also trained by Loughnane Snr., in a similar race at Wolverhampton just over a month later.

Thereafter, it would be fair to say that Loughnane has been a jockey on a meteoric rise to the top of his profession. After riding just six winners, all bar one of which were trained by his father, in his inaugural season, he increased his seasonal tally to an astonishing 130, from 875 rides at a strike rate of 15%, in 2023. In so doing, he won the apprentices’ title and reached the 95 winners required to ride out his claim less than a year after taking his first ride.Indeed, his performance was all the more remarkable for the fact that he missed a total of six weeks of the season, spending three weeks at Gulfstream Park in Florida and three more on the sidelines, after breaking his thumb in a stalls incident at Nottingham at the height of the summer.

Twice crowned all-weather champion apprentice, in April 2023 and April 2024, Loughnane has continued the good work into the new turf season. On June 18, 2024, he rode his first Royal Ascot winner, Rashabar, trained by Brian Meehan, in the Group 2 Coventry Stakes and currently lies fifth in the Flat Jockeys’ Championship, having ridden 42 winners from 291 rides at a strike rate of 14%.