Teenage star jockey Billy Loughnane: ‘It’s been my dream job since I was a baby’

“I want to be champion jockey,” Billy Loughnane says, with the grin that is already something of a trademark. “That’s my goal, my only ambition. I want to be champion jockey, I need to be champion jockey and hopefully I’ll be able to do it.”

From any other teenage rider bar the 19-year-old Loughnane, such a resolute statement of intent could prompt at least a niggle of concern that, with such a tight focus on the ultimate destination, he might not appreciate the journey. Loughnane, though, has been a little different from the earliest days of his riding career.

He was being talked about as a future champion well before he started to discuss the idea himself. He has also, quite clearly, been enjoying every moment of the ride and every fresh career milestone that has appeared in his rearview mirror at a remarkably early stage of his career.

Horses have always just run for Loughnane, as they did for Ryan Moore, Frankie Dettori and, way back in the 1950s, for a teenaged Lester Piggott who, like Loughnane, grew up in a racing yard and started out riding for his father.

“There’s pictures of me a couple of days after I was born, perched up on a horse,” Loughnane says. “I grew up around racehorses and it’s been my dream job since I was a baby, as soon as I could imagine.

“I’ve had a good couple of years and I’ve been lucky since I started. I’ve got a very good agent behind me now in Tony Hind, and a good boss in George Boughey to go with it.”

Dettori was the champion apprentice at 18 but Loughnane was a year younger when he picked up the prize in 2023 and, while Dettori needed the best part of two full seasons to ride out his claim, Loughnane reached the necessary 95 winners less than a year after his debut success in November 2022.

It was an 11-month period when the naturally gifted Loughnane was, for practical and punting purposes, a senior jockey with a claim. His first winner – Swiss Rowe for his father, Mark – was a 28-1 chance but it did not take the market long to catch up. Within weeks, he was the punters’ favourite apprentice, riding – and winning – on well-backed runners on almost a daily basis.

His first Group-race win arrived in April 2024 and a first success at Royal Ascot – on only his ninth ride at Flat racing’s showpiece meeting – came two months later, as Loughnane coolly steered Rashabar, an unconsidered 80-1 shot in the betting, to victory in the Group Two Coventry Stakes. It was the jockey’s sole ride on Brian Meehan’s colt and it remains the only success of Rashabar’s 10-race career. A longed-for first success at Group One level, meanwhile, arrived this month, when he got the call from Charlie Appleby to ride Rebel’s Romance, the hot favourite, in the Grosser Preis von Berlin.

Amid all the quickfire success and the inevitable attention that followed, Loughnane’s awareness and composure in the saddle have been matched by a strikingly clear-eyed sense of how far he still has to travel. How has he managed to stay so grounded? “Everyone asks me the question,” he says, “and it’s a difficult one for me to answer.

“I wake up, ride out in the mornings, try and ride out in as many places as possible to get around and get the rides later in the day. Then I go to the gym, go to the races, focus on my rides, ride my horses and go home, that’s my whole life.”

In 2025, Loughnane has not simply been busy, but the busiest rider of all in the British weighing room, with 771 rides. Rossa Ryan, with 712 rides, is the only other jockey to pass 700. Every ride, meanwhile, involves much more than a minute or two on the track.

“A lot goes in beforehand with the form book,” he says, “looking at my horse’s previous form and its run style, making a plan on what to do with the trainer before the race. I’m very lucky that I’ve got a good team around me and a driver to drive me to the races, so I can do my form in the car on the way, when I’m not sleeping.”

Only Oisin Murphy, with 131 winners since 1 January, has ridden more than Loughnane’s 124 this year, and though Loughnane trails the reigning champion by 28 in the official race, which runs from May to mid-October, a recent burst of winners has taken him into a clear second, going into the Ebor meeting at York this week.

“There are no days off, I’m riding seven days a week,” he says, “but I’m happy to be busy and I’d be complaining if I was sat at home with no rides. My outlook’s the same and it will always be the same – trying to win the championship every year to come.”

Danon Decile can deliver York delight

Only six go to post for the Group One International Stakes at York on Wednesday but the race still promises to be one of the highlights of the summer season, with horses from four different countries ensuring that it lives up to its name.

Delacroix and Ombudsman, first and second respectively in the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown last month, head the betting, with Ombudsman narrowly favoured at 15-8 and Delacroix back to around 2-1 after a concerning – and unexplained – drift to 6-1 over the weekend. The pair are closely matched on their Sandown form but nowhere near as far clear of their field on ratings as the market suggests.

See The Fire, whose sire (Sea The Stars) and dam (Arabian Queen) both won this race, is an intriguing alternative at the track and trip where she took the Middleton Stakes by a dozen lengths in May, and it is easy to overlook her run behind Whirl at Goodwood last time after she handed several lengths to the winner at the start.

A stronger challenge, though, may emerge from the Japanese-trained contender Danon Decile (3.35). Keita Tosaki’s four-year‑old won last year’s Japanese Derby, and showed he can take his best form overseas when coming home a length and a half in front of Calandagan, the King George winner at Ascot last month, in March’s Sheema Classic at Meydan.

York 1.50: Spring Is Sprung is in the form of his life and has already landed a £100,000 bonus for three wins in the Sunday Series. Paul Midgley’s six-year-old has just a 5lb penalty for his most recent success and has a useful draw in stall one as he looks to complete a four-timer.

York 2.25: The eye-catcher at the prices in a competitive Acomb Stakes is David Menuisier’s Goodwood Galaxy at around 8-1 He was still showing plenty of signs of inexperience when finishing a two-length fourth behind Zavateri in the Vintage Stakes at Glorious Goodwood last month but made rapid progress when the penny dropped in the closing stages and the time of the race suggests it is strong form..

York 3.00: It is a bold move by Aidan O’Brien to send Lambourn, the Derby winner at Epsom and in Ireland, into action under a penalty in the Great Voltigeur, and while Ryan Moore’s mount is an inevitable favourite he was a workmanlike winner at the Curragh and the extra 5lb on his back brings several rivals within striking distance on Timeform’s ratings. Pride Of Arras, a bitter disappointment since his impressive win at this track in the Dante in May, returns to the Knavesmire as a gelding and would be a big runner on his spring form, but the unbeaten Carmers may be a safer bet to continue his progress after another career-best in the Queen’s Vase last time.

York 4.10: The return to two miles could well see a return to winning form by Dancing In Paris, whose best run this year came at this trip in the Northumberland Plate in June.