Billy Loughnane had never ridden in a professional race four years ago. Now he is set to be crowned Flat racing's champion jockey. At just 20, he is the youngest person to do so in more than a century, which means he has not yet shaken off the nickname "Billy the Kid."
"It's been an extraordinary couple of years, really," said Loughnane. "I didn't think it would snowball into what it's become." In January 2023, BBC Sport visited him at his family's racing yard in Worcestershire. As a 16-year-old, he was taking the racing world by storm, racking up more than 20 winners in the first few weeks of the year. He insisted then that people needed to "calm down." Becoming champion jockey was a dream that felt a "long way off."
Yet here we are. This Saturday, on Champions Day at Ascot, Loughnane will lift the trophy. He admitted he felt pressure "not to let it slip" until a few weeks ago, when his nearest challenger Oisin Murphy waved the white flag. Loughnane currently leads Murphy by 29 with 222 winners. He is not stopping there. The young star wants to break Sir Gordon Richards' 1947 record of 269 winners in a calendar year. "Yeah, it's in my sights," said the Irishman, the son of trainer Mark Loughnane.
His partnership with trainer George Boughey has been pivotal to his career. He rode the Boughey-trained Bow Echo to three Grade 1 victories, the highlight being the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket. "I've been searching for that feeling again," he said. Loughnane also keeps meticulous notes in a WhatsApp group on every horse he rides. "I sit on a lot of horses in the year. I've sat on over 1,000 already this year," he said. "I wouldn't be doing my job properly if I wasn't."
Source: BBC Sport · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing