Paul Townend Heads into Cheltenham with a Strong Book of Rides

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The leading jockey award at the Cheltenham Festival is a prize every National Hunt jockey in the sport dreams of winning. It is a sign that it has been a great week for the respective rider at the prestigious meeting.

Irish jockey Paul Townend has won the award four times, including at each of the last three renewals of the meeting. With a strong book of rides, he will be fancied to defend his title once again.

Galopin Des Champs: The Horse Townend Will Be Most Excited About

Champion Jockey, Townend, has good rides on each of the four days of the 2025 Cheltenham Festival, but it is Galopin Des Champs in the Cheltenham Gold Cup that will likely excite him the most. The defending champion is 8/15 in the Cheltenham betting to prevail in the Blue Riband event for the third straight year.

Townend is 2/5 in the bet on horse racing market for the top jockey award at the Cheltenham Festival. Galopin Des Champs will give the Irishman a great chance of ending the week on a high on day four.

As the retained jockey for Champion Trainer, Willie Mullins, Townend also has some exciting rides on day one. Kopek Des Bordes is a warm favourite to win the opening race of the meeting, the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle. He will also get to choose between Lossiemouth and State Man in the Champion Hurdle, the premier hurdles race.

Townend has now won 34 Cheltenham Festival races in his career, including 10 wins in the championship races. He will be confident of adding to his tally this year at the Gloucestershire racecourse.

Mark Walsh: The Biggest Challenger to Townend

Irishman, Mark Walsh, is set to ride the pick of JP McManus’ horses at the Cheltenham Festival this year. That will include Fact To File in the Ryanair Chase, his most likely target ahead of the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Majborough will give Walsh a great chance of making a great start to the meeting, as he is the odds-on favourite for the Arkle Trophy, the second race of the week. The Irishman rode the horse to victory in the Irish Arkle at Leopardstown on his most recent appearance.

Walsh is set to pick up some great rides for the handicap races across the four days. McLaurey is one of those horses. He is expected to be a strong contender for the County Hurdle on day four of the meeting.

Nico de Boinville: The Leading British Rider at The Meeting

British jockey Nico de Boinville has the best chance of the home-based riders in the race for the top jockey award this year. With Constitution Hill now back to his best following his triumph in the Christmas Hurdle, he is the one to beat in the Champion Hurdle, with de Boinville set to be on board.

Nicky Henderson’s retained rider also has Jonbon and Lallana in the Queen Mother Champion Chase and Triumph Hurdle respectively. It looks set to be a more prosperous week for the pair than they had in 2024.

The leading jockey award at the 2025 Cheltenham Festival is set to be handed out after the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle.

Where, and when, did Ralph Beckett first saddle a colt to Group 1 success?

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Formerly assistant trainer to the late Peter Walwyn at Windsor House Stables in Lambourn, Berkshire, Ralph Beckett took over the licence in 1999 and saddled his first winner in his own right, Order, at Huntingdon on January 27, 2000. He subsequently moved to Whitsbury Manor Stables, near Fordingbridge, Hampshire in 2006 and, again, to his current state-of-the-art yard, Kimpton Down Stables, near Andover in late 2010.

In his early career, Beckett justifiably earned a unsought and not altogether wanted reputation as a trainer of fillies. His first top-class horse was the Pivotal filly Penkenna Princess, who won the Fred Darling Stakes at Newbury on her three-year-old debut in 2005 and, two starts later, came within a whisker of becoming his first Group 1 winner when touched off by a short head in the Irish 1,000 Guineas.

Following the move to Whitsbury, that first Group 1 winner duly arrived in the form of Look Here in the Oaks at Epsom in 2008. In 2013, Beckett saddled Talent to win the same race and, in 2015, Simple Verse to win the St. Leger at Doncaster and the British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes at Ascot. Indeed, Beckett had to wait until October 3, 2021, when Angel Bleu won the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at Longchamp, to saddle a colt to a Group 1 success. Angel Bleu followed up in the Criterium International at Saint-Cloud three weeks later for back-to-back Group 1 victories and the following June Beckett saddled Westover to an impressive, seven-length win in the Irish Derby at the Curragh.

Do jockeys get paid if they lose?

The short answer is yes, they do. Jockeys must maintain exemplary levels of strength and fitness while, at the same time, adhering to a strict dietary regime, which, in many cases, causes them to exist below their natural body weight. Nevertheless, for all the discipline involved, the fact remains that all jockeys ride many more losers than winners, regardless of whether they happen to be one of your acca tips or picks. If they were to rely on a percentage of prize money alone, their earnings would be, at best, wildly haphazard.

For example, Oisin Murphy, who was crowned champion jockey for the fourth time in six years in October 2024, won his title with a total of 163 winners from 754 rides, at a strike rate of 22%. Of course, Murphy is one of the fortunate few who are paid a handsome ‘retainer’ to ride for an individual trainer or owner on account of his impressive results, in his case Qatar Racing, which is owned by Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah al Thani. The vast majority of his weighing-room colleagues have no such luxury and, aside from prize money, are paid on a ‘piecework’ basis, at a fixed rate for each ride they take.

At the time of writing, all Flat jockeys receive £162.79 per ride, regardless of their status, while their National Hunt counterparts receive £221.28, in both cases subject to deductions for agent fees, union fees, inusrance and the like. Flat jockeys also receive approximately 7% of winning prize money, National Hunt jockeys receive approximately 9%, and both types of jockey approximately 4% of place prize money.

Who are, or were, the richest jockeys in history?

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richest jockeysMost jockeys are self-employed and, as such, rely on riding fees and a percentage of any prize-money won by their mounts for their income. Riding fees and prize-money are a matter of public record, but details of contracts, or ‘retainers’, to ride for individual owners or trainers are not. Thus, the exact earnings of some of the leading jockeys in the world remain a closely guarded secret.

It is also worth noting that Japan is, far and away, the biggest and most lucrative jurisdiction in the world, so it should come as no surprise that most of the highest-earning jockeys in history are hardly household names outside their native country.

According to the latest ‘Jockey Rich List’, published by the in-house editorial team at the trusted OLBG sports betting website, the highest-earning jockey in history is Yutaka Take, whose 4,495 wins, at the time of publication, had yielded $950 million in prize money. A legend in his homeland, Take has a host of Group 1 and Grade 1 winners to his name, worldwide, including Agnes World, trained by Hideyuki Mori, in the July Cup at Newmarket in 2001.

The next three positions on the all-time list are also occupied by Japanese jockeys, namely, Norihiro Yokoyama, Yuichi Fukunaga and Masayoshi Ebina; the latter is probably best remembered for his association with the prolific El Condor Pasa in the late nineties. The first non-Japanese name on the list is that of Puerta Rican John R. Velazquez, who has plied in his trade in the United States for the last three and a half decades and has six Triple Crown victories to his name.