Racing blog
What it takes to be a top-level Flat apprentice in Britain - and who’s doing it now
Thursday 22 January
2026
There’s a particular sort of courage required to become a Flat apprentice in Britain. Not the cinematic kind - no one is applauding as you leg up at 7.10pm on a wet Tuesday at Wolverhampton - but a daily, professional courage: to be judged relentlessly, to be light enough and strong enough at the same time, to learn faster than your peers, and to keep your nerve when you’ve just been closed out at the furlong pole and there’s a split-second to decide whether to switch, go through, or accept defeat.
The romantic version of the apprenticeship is a handful of wins, a beaming photograph in the yard, then a neat ascent into the top weighing room. The reality is a trade learned under pressure: part athlete, part tactician, part diplomat - and, increasingly, part performance scientist.
The apprenticeship, properly understood
A British Flat apprentice is not simply “a young jockey”. They are licensed within a defined framework, and they are expected to arrive with more than enthusiasm. The British Racing School’s licensing route makes that plain: applicants must complete pre-licence assessment, pass medical standards, and then complete a two-week licence course (at the British Racing School or Northern Racing College), with fitness and competence assessed as part of the process. The licence is for riders aged 16-26 in full-time paid employment with a UK-licensed trainer.
The famous “claim” - the weight allowance apprentices can take off a horse’s back - is simultaneously a gift and a test. It exists to level the playing field, but it also creates a trap: if you are only being booked for your claim, you are one good season away from being unwanted. The Professional Jockeys Association summarises the core thresholds neatly: 7lb until 20 wins, 5lb until 50, 3lb until 95 (with special provisions in apprentice-only races).
So the true aim is not to cling to the claim; it’s to outgrow it. A top apprentice learns to become “booked as a jockey” while still technically an apprentice.
The modern edge: coaching, metrics and professionalism
If older generations learned by feel and hard miles, the current cohort is being shaped by something closer to an integrated talent pathway. The BHA and Horseracing Industry People Board have just launched a formal Rider Development Pathway, delivered by the British Racing School, explicitly designed to connect coaching, training, and progression from entry-level riding through to jockey ranks. It’s underpinned by a Rider Competency Matrix - essentially an industry-wide definition of what “good” looks like at each stage - and it continues to encompass the long-running Jockey Coaching Programme, which supports 133 conditional and apprentice jockeys.
That matters because the sport has changed. Data is everywhere now: stride patterns, sectionals, draw bias analysis, pace maps. At the top end, the best apprentices are expected to absorb information like senior pros - and still deliver the unteachable part: judgement at speed, in traffic, when the horse changes legs and the gap you wanted becomes a shoulder-to-shoulder argument.
The job, in four hard disciplines
-
Weight: a ruthless, private battle
Being light is not a skill; it’s a constraint. The best apprentices treat weight as an ongoing professional project: nutrition, hydration strategy, strength work, sleep. Do it badly and you lose muscle, power and judgement. Do it well and you can be strong enough to hold position, balanced enough to help a horse lengthen, and calm enough to make the right call late. -
Craft: “riding work” is where careers are made
Race-riding is a performance; morning work is the apprenticeship. Trainers book apprentices who improve horses at home: who can teach a keen two-year-old to settle, who can switch one on without lighting the fuse, who give feedback that is specific and useful. That’s also where the relationships are built: stable staff, travelling head lads, assistant trainers. The best apprentices become reliable to an entire ecosystem. -
Tactics: pace and position are the modern currency
The Flat has become more exacting. You don’t just “get a lead” anymore; you need to understand whether the race will collapse, whether you’re on the right part of the track, whether your horse is a grinder or a quickener, and what the likely pressure points are. Great apprentices learn to see a race twice: once as it unfolds, and once in advance. -
Temperament: resilience without drama
The weighing room can be kind, but it can also be blunt. Owners want winners; trainers want trust; the public wants certainty. An apprentice will make mistakes - the question is whether they learn cleanly and keep their nerve. The top ones are conspicuously unemotional in public: polite, concise, accountable - and privately obsessive.
The “big names”: apprentices who became institutions
Britain has always treated apprenticeship as a proving ground, and the roll-call of graduates is a reminder that greatness rarely arrives fully formed.
At the deep end of history sits Lester Piggott, an apprentice who became a national figure - a rider whose name is almost shorthand for the sport itself. The Champion Apprentice list stretches back to 1922 and includes multiple eras of talent being filtered through the same idea: win races, learn fast, grow into the job.
In the modern professional era, several names underline how often the apprenticeship is a springboard rather than a destination:
Oisin Murphy won the apprentice title (2014) and went on to become champion Flat jockey multiple times.
Tom Marquand (Champion Apprentice 2015) has become a major international rider.
Josephine Gordon (2016) broke through the old assumptions about who could make it at scale, and her apprentice championship is part of that story.
David Egan (2017) and Jason Watson (2018) were both apprentices who moved quickly into high-class opportunities.
Cieren Fallon (Champion Apprentice 2019 and 2020) translated that into a senior career and remains prominent.
Marco Ghiani (2021) and Benoît de la Sayette (2022) are examples of apprentices who looked “ready” unusually early.
Billy Loughnane (2023) is the recent, emphatic case study: champion apprentice, and now already mixing it at the top of the senior championship table.
That last point matters: the best apprentices don’t simply win the apprentice title - they start taking rides that would previously have gone to fully established seniors, because trainers believe their judgement holds up.
The recent standard-bearer: Joe Leavy and the 2025 cohort
The most recently completed apprentice championship season (as listed by the PJA) was won by Joe Leavy, Champion Apprentice Jockey for 2025.
More interesting than the headline, though, is what the standings say about depth — and about where the next wave is likely to come from. The 2025 final top 10 included:
Joe Leavy (41 wins)
Jack Doughty (37)
Alec Voikhansky (29)
Jack Callan (28)
Warren Fentiman (26)
William Pyle (24)
Oisin McSweeney (22)
Mason Paetel (21)
Ashley Lewis (21)
Jack Dace (21)
That’s a list worth lingering over, because it shows different routes to the same destination.
The volume operators: riders like Leavy and Doughty rack up rides, build relationships, and become fixtures for certain yards and owners.
The efficiency plays: others — Voikhansky notably — combine fewer rides with a strong strike-rate, which is often a marker of being trusted with better ammunition.
The dual-surface professionals: the modern apprentice has to be effective on turf and all-weather, and often at different tracks with different demands, week after week.
The up-and-comers to track now
If you want a forward-looking lens beyond the traditional turf-centred narrative, the All-Weather Championships’ “Champion Apprentice Jockey” leaderboard is a useful snapshot of apprentices making noise through the winter season.
You wouldn’t pretend an all-weather leaderboard alone predicts a Classic winner. But it does indicate who is getting opportunities, who is converting them, and who is learning to operate in the most transactional, competitive environment in British racing - where you can ride three tracks in four days, for three trainers, on three very different types of horse, and still be expected to make good decisions in the last 200 yards.
A sensible “watch list”, grounded in the most recent completed apprentice standings and the current all-weather picture, starts with:
Joe Leavy: the champion, and now the question is how quickly he transitions from “leading apprentice” to “sought-after senior”.
Jack Doughty / Alec Voikhansky / Jack Callan / Warren Fentiman / William Pyle / Jack Dace: all proven at apprentice level, all young enough to take a significant step again.
Lauren Young / Ryan Kavanagh / Aiden Brookes: prominent on the all-weather apprentice leaderboard — precisely the sort of platform from which riders can become year-round fixtures.
Harry Vigors gets a special mention as a rider who has only just begun his career and has started with a bang. He has a 19% strike rate from only 27 rides so far and will exclusively be riding Suzuka for RaceShare, so it’s onwards and upwards for this exciting young apprentice - and he’s also an excellent talker.
The difficult truth: talent isn’t enough
Every generation produces stylish, strong apprentices who don’t quite make the final jump. Why? Because the last step is not about riding ability alone.
At senior level, you are competing for a scarce resource: good horses. To get them, you need trust - and trust in this sport is an accumulated thing. Trainers trust riders who follow instructions but can adapt when a race goes wrong. Owners trust riders who communicate without excuses. And horses - the best ones - reward riders who are balanced, sympathetic, and tactically ruthless in exactly the right moments.
That’s why the apprenticeship remains one of British sport’s most unforgiving apprenticeships in the old sense of the word: you are learning a craft in public, under time pressure, with consequences.
But it’s also why, when an apprentice does emerge as genuinely top-level, you often feel it before the titles arrive. The rides look quieter. The horses look happier. The decisions look earlier. And the “claim” - that temporary advantage - starts to feel incidental, like scaffolding around a building that has already found its shape.