Who will win the Flat apprentice jockeys' championship between Benoit De La Sayette and Harry Davies?
Adam Houghton has an update on the state of play in the 2022 apprentice jockeys' championship as Benoit De La Sayette and Harry Davies continue to go head-to-head.
*Article published prior to racing on Sunday 28 August.
The race to be crowned champion apprentice continues to be a closely fought contest this year with just two winners currently separating the two leaders, Benoit De La Sayette (42) and Harry Davies (40).
The apprentice jockeys’ championship is decided on which rider racks up the most winners in all Flat races (including on the all-weather) between the Guineas Festival at Newmarket (April 30) and British Champions Day at Ascot (October 15).
Davies had held the upper hand as recently as Wednesday, but De La Sayette has since swung things in his favour with three winners in as many days.
Incidentally, Davies currently leads De La Sayette 7-6 by number of winners since the start of August, a month in which both riders have served lengthy bans, missing 12 days and 14 days, respectively.
That was essentially the first break Davies has had since making his debut in the saddle back in January, but it wasn’t the first time the 19-year-old De La Sayette has fallen foul of the authorities.
Indeed, De La Sayette has been forced to make up for lost time this year after returning from the six-month ban he received for testing positive for cocaine in April 2021, just as he was beginning to establish himself as one of the rising stars of the weighing room.
Fast start for De La Sayette
A prolific winner in the pony racing ranks in both Britain and France in his youth, De La Sayette then became the first apprentice jockey to be attached to the Gosden stable for nearly 30 years and he had his first ride under Rules at Chelmsford in November 2020 on a horse trained out of that yard.
De La Sayette had still only ridden in four races under Rules when getting off the mark aboard Hint of Stars at Newcastle three days before the end of 2020. That fluent success put De La Sayette on many people’s radars heading into 2021, a year he kicked off with a bang by immediately doubling his career tally on his first ride of the calendar year aboard Heptathlete at Wolverhampton.
Those back-to-back wins were a portent of things to come during the rest of January 2021 for De La Sayette, who ended the month with six winners from 16 rides.
De La Sayette then limited the number of rides he took in February 2021 to protect his 7-lb claim for the turf season, which looked a sensible move at the time given the ammunition he could expect to receive from the Gosdens in some of the better handicaps during the summer months.
Haqeeqy got the ball rolling with his success in the Lincoln (replay below) at Doncaster in March 2021 – a first winner on turf for De La Sayette on his very first ride on the surface – but the jockey only had chance to add two more winners to his tally (taking his total to 12) before his six-month ban for testing positive for cocaine kicked in.
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De La Sayette had the opportunity to resume his career in October 2021 had he chosen to do so, but instead he waited until March this year to come back. He ended up marking his return to the saddle in the best possible fashion as he partnered the George Scott-trained Rubbeldiekatz to victory at Wolverhampton on his first ride back.
De La Sayette put his 7-lb claim to good use in another big handicap in May when Vafortino – trained by another of the rider’s biggest supporters in Kevin Philippart De Foy – won the Victoria Cup at Ascot.
In total, De La Sayette has now ridden 57 winners and it was when he rode a double at Nottingham on May 17 that he reached 20 winners and had his claim reduced to 5-lb, one of the first big milestones in the career of any young jockey.
It’s a milestone which the 17-year-old Davies ticked off just 10 days later when winning at Chepstow on Fossos. Remarkably, it took Davies barely four and a half months to get there after riding his first winner at Lingfield on January 14 when, on just his second ride under Rules, he delivered Coolagh Magic on the line to get the verdict by a nose (replay below).
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Davies then made it two out of three on the George Boughey-trained Desert Lime at Wolverhampton three days later, while his fourth winner came for none other than Charlie Appleby when successful on Tranquil Night at Kempton in February.
It seems that Davies has always been a precocious talent. He was champion on the pony racing circuit in 2018 and 2019 and from the age of just seven had ambitions to eventually join Andrew Balding’s yard in the hope of following in the footsteps of several leading Flat riders who learned their craft as apprentices at Kingsclere.
In an interview in May this year, Davies said: “Hopefully, I can repeat what the likes of Oisin Murphy, William Buick and David Probert did as it would be a fantastic story to tell in a few years’ time.
“I always had my eye set on coming here [to Kingsclere] as if there was one man who could make you champion apprentice jockey, it was Mr. Balding.”
Davies has now ridden a total of 52 winners in 2022 and he is certainly going great guns in his bid to be crowned champion apprentice, albeit De La Sayette seems sure to provide stiff opposition.
De La Sayette and Davies in elite company
De La Sayette reached 50 winners when guiding Good Regal to victory at Epsom on July 28 and Davies reached his half-century when winning on Foreseeable Future at Windsor on August 15, so both riders have now had their claim reduced to 3-lb.
It shouldn’t be underestimated just how impressive their achievements have been. In particular, it’s the speed with which they have racked up the winners which points to them both having big futures.
For context, it took De La Sayette just 248 rides to reach 50 winners – remarkably operating at a 20% strike rate in the early stages of his career – while Davies did it after 304 rides. Those figures compare favourably with the early achievements of most other riders, including some of the biggest names in the sport today.
Ryan Moore is a prime example, champion apprentice in 2003 and now widely regarded as one of the best jockeys in the world. However, it took Moore 473 rides under Rules to reach 50 winners, while he also did it over a much longer period of time. Indeed, Moore had been riding for nearly three years before reaching the milestone which saw his claim reduced to 3-lb.
For someone like James Doyle winners proved even harder to come by in the early days – he needed 599 rides under Rules to reach 50 winners. For Hollie Doyle it took 449 rides and for Tom Marquand, champion apprentice in 2015, it took 415 rides. Even Buick, who shared the champion apprentice title with Probert in 2008, needed 393 rides to reach 50 winners.
That leaves only Murphy, champion apprentice in 2014 and another former Kingsclere protégé, with a comparable record – it took him 279 rides to reach his half-century, 25 fewer than Davies.
It goes without saying that both De La Sayette and Davies have been blessed with opportunities that plenty of other jockeys their age simply don’t get, based with two of the most powerful yards in the country and also getting plenty of outside rides.
Davies, for example, has had a total of 330 rides for 84 different trainers in 2022, including 51 for Balding, 31 for Hugo Palmer and 20 for Appleby. Meanwhile, De La Sayette has had 235 rides for 66 different trainers in 2022, including 43 for the Gosdens and 32 for Philippart De Foy.
The sheer volume of rides they’ve had isn’t necessarily anything out of the ordinary for an apprentice gunning for the championship, though. When Murphy was crowned champion apprentice in 2014, he had no fewer than 663 rides in the calendar year. For Moore in 2003 it was 627, for Buick in 2008 it was 560 and for Marquand in 2015 it was 602.
If anything, the claims of De La Sayette and Davies have been utilised a bit more sparingly than some of those champion apprentices before them.
Whilst Moore, Buick and Murphy all rode out their claims relatively early in their championship-winning seasons, De La Sayette and Davies will do well to achieve that feat before the end of 2022 – an apprentice loses their claim when they reach 95 winners, a tally they are both still some way off.
That will come as welcome news to all the trainers keen to utilise their services, including in some of the biggest handicaps in the calendar where the margins are so small that having a good-value claimer on your side can make all the difference.
De La Sayette already has victories in the 2021 Lincoln and the 2022 Victoria Cup (replay below) on his CV, of course, while Davies was involved in both races this year on horses trained by Appleby. He was also booked by Balding to ride Symbolize in the Hunt Cup and by Palmer to ride Rajinsky in both the Chester Cup and Northumberland Plate.
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It doesn’t seem at all fanciful to suggest that those high-profile mounts will be just the first of many in the makings of two long and illustrious careers.
In the short term, however, we can look forward to what should continue to be a fascinating head-to-head between now and British Champions Day, when surely one of them will follow in the footsteps of Moore, Buick and co by being crowned champion apprentice.