Billy Loughnane to be installed as Flat champion jockey at Ascot on Saturday at age 20
Billy Loughnane, 20, will be officially installed as Flat racing’s new champion jockey at Ascot on Saturday, becoming the youngest champion in more than a century.
Loughnane says his mother wanted him to be a vet: “You’d have to ask her why,” he says. “I’d say money and an easier lifestyle, but I always wanted to be a jockey and made it very clear that was what I wanted to be doing. My parents and family have all been very supportive since.” Winning the jockeys’ title has been his stated ambition since his first ride as a “very nervous” 16-year-old apprentice at Wolverhampton in October 2022, and he will join an unusually young roll-call — Pat Eddery was 22 when he won his first title, Frankie Dettori was 23, while Lester Piggott was twice that age when he landed his first championship.
“It’s a full-on season from the moment it kicks off,” he says. “Most days you’re riding out in the morning, so you’re up at 5.30 and on your first horse at 5.45, and riding anywhere from two to eight horses until 9 or 9.30. Then on a typical day it’s an hour in the gym, and if I’m riding at an evening meeting, there’s a bit of time to catch up with things but if not, it’s straight into the car and off you go racing. I’ll ride anywhere from five to nine horses, then it’s back home and do it all again the next day, seven days a week. “But I’ve really enjoyed it, and I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. I think when you get to a certain age and level, you don’t want to be riding at Kempton on a Monday night, but I want to go racing every day. I’m bored when I’m not riding.”
After a slow start in May, Loughnane swept past Oisin Murphy, the defending champion, in mid-July and extended his lead thereafter. What had been expected to be a close contest between the two riders proved not to be, leaving him able to discuss the achievement in a relaxed manner at George Boughey’s yard in Newmarket last week.
Loughnane attributes his rise to a team around him and to early support from family: he is the son of trainer Mark Loughnane, who supplied his earliest rides and winners, and he pays particular credit to Boughey and to his agent, Tony Hind. “I’m lucky to have been supported by good people since I started,” he says. “I stepped straight in as a 7lb claimer with George and he’s gone from strength to strength with the horses in his yard, I’m just the lucky one that gets to partner good horses for good people. And Tony is a genius. My life changed as soon as I started working for him.”
When asked to name his most satisfying success of 2026, he highlights Bow Echo’s win in the 2,000 Guineas in May. “There had been a lot of preparation from all of us here,” he says, “and that was the best buzz I’ve ever had on a racecourse. The way the race went, it couldn’t have gone better. It was just how me and George wanted it to go, and obviously when plans like that come off in Group Ones, it’s fantastic.”
Loughnane has had six days off from race-riding since the start of August, and he notes there was little let-up in his schedule from January to April. The title race runs from early May to mid-October; he is the only jockey to have reached 150 wins in the championship window and has more than 220 wins this year in all. “Usually at this stage of the year, you’re winding down a bit,” he says, “but Sir Gordon Richards’ record [of 269 Flat winners in a calendar year, set in 1947] is the next goal and I’m just going to keep on blasting through until the end of the year to see how close I can get.”
“I’ve been with my girlfriend for the last two years and she sorts a lot of stuff outside [racing] and makes my life very easy,” Loughnane says, “and we’ll get a holiday at some stage but probably not until the end of the year. “There’s the week off in [mid] November [when no UK Flat racing is scheduled, to give riders a guaranteed break], but there’s racing in Bahrain that week, so I imagine I’ll be there.”
A title defence and “riding as many Group Ones as possible” are top priorities for 2027, he says. “It’s relentless, but you have to enjoy it if you want to do it,” he adds. “It’s not possible if you don’t. And I’m still learning every day. You don’t stop learning and like there’s always people around to help and learn off. I’m definitely far from the finished article, but I’m only 20 years old, so I’ll just keep trying to learn off the best.”