Apprentice Jockeys Revisited

Seven years ago, I wrote a piece on apprentice jockeys in flat racing. In this article I am going to revisit this area and expand my research. I am going to focus on UK flat racing, both turf and all weather, where previously I restricted it to turf racing only.

At the beginning of their riding careers jockeys are able to claim a weight allowance. In other words, the horse has to carry less weight. The idea behind this is that this will provide some sort of compensation for their lack of experience when comparing them to more experienced riders. Such jockeys are called claiming jockeys or apprentice jockeys.

Apprentice jockeys can take three, five or seven pounds off their horse's back and the figure dependent on how many winners a jockey has ridden – jockeys who have won 20 or fewer races are able to claim 7lb, jockeys that have ridden 21 to 40 winners can claim 5lb, while jockeys that have ridden 41 to 95 winners are able to claim 3lb. There is also an age consideration and apprentice jockeys must be aged between 16 and 26.

This article examines the statistics of apprentice jockeys, and the data has been taken from the past 5 full seasons (2017 – 2021). This article focuses on apprentice jockeys in open races – races that are also open to professional jockeys.

All profits/ losses have been calculated to Betfair SP (with the 5% commission taken into account).

Essentially these figures should come as no surprise – a strike rate of roughly 1 win in every 11 rides and a loss of just over 11 pence for every £1 staked.

Let us now break down these figures individually into 3, 5 and 7lb claimers:

These strike rates are quite similar and the perhaps key figure for punters, Return on Investment (ROI %), are also extremely close. It seems the actual weight claim makes little difference in reality.

The next angle I considered was race-type. Does this make a difference? I guessed that apprentice jockeys may be used more by a trainer in handicap races.

The table below gives a breakdown of the four main race types:

The statistics are very clear showing that maiden races are races to avoid in terms of apprentice jockeys. A very low strike rate at 6.5% and losses equating to just under 26 pence in the £.

This poor performance occurred when looking at this data for the 2015 article so clearly things have not changed. As expected, apprentice jockeys are used primarily in handicaps. However, losses are still around the 11% mark.

David Renham

Featured Image: (CC BY 4.0) – A jockey, on a horse! Racing.

In our Gold edition Dave looks further in to where the apprentice jockeys are used to their advantage, and how possibly you can profit when an apprentice jockey is onboard. To read the rest of this article upgrade to a Gold or Platinum account now by clicking HERE

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