The Epsom Dash-winning apprentice who operated at a 45 per cent strike-rate last week and has one ride at Kempton today

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The latest promising young apprentice to emerge this Flat season is Joe Leavy, who had a thoroughly pleasing time of it last week. The 18-year-old didn't sit on a favourite at any stage but nevertheless rode five winners from his 11 mounts, including a 40-1 double at Brighton on Thursday.

"It's been pretty surreal," Leavy tells the Front Runner. "I thought I had good chances but if you'd said I'd have five winners, I'd have laughed at that. Everything went the right way.

"I've got some nice booked rides coming up this week and I'm hoping for some more winners to keep up the momentum."

Like many a jockey before him, Leavy has a family connection to the great game. His father is Barry Leavy, who held a trainer's licence for more than 20 years. You might remember his Stewarts Pride, a nine-length winner of the Summer National at Stratford in 2001 – it's the same race now known as the Summer Cup and held at Uttoxeter.

Leavy jnr was not necessarily fated for a job in racing; he was good enough at football to get a trial at Crewe Alexandra, but it didn't work out. That was when he committed to horses, seizing the chance of an apprenticeship at Richard Hannon's, where he'd been riding out in summer for most of his teenage years.

Leavy's parents moved south along with him a couple of years ago and both now work for Hannon, where Barry is employed as a head lad. "He loves it," Leavy says.

What parent would not enjoy the chance of being so on-hand to watch their child's early successes? An early highlight this season came when Leavy rode Dream Composer to win the famous Dash at Epsom, the mad, downhill charge that comes before the Derby itself.

James Evans, the Kinnersley-based trainer of Dream Composer, has been an especially enthusiastic user of Leavy's talents. They've shared seven winners this year, as many as the jockey has had for Hannon. Roger Teal supplied two of last week's winners, so perhaps that is an alliance that will grow.

Leavy thanks Hannon for his support and is also keen to mention his jockey coach, George Baker, and his agent, Phil Shea: "He works really hard and does a fantastic job."

What has Baker been working on with him? "At the start of the year, it was tactical things about race-riding. I became familiar with that and then it's been mainly the stick."

Richard Hannon: Joe Leavy is based with the leading trainerCredit: Edward Whitaker

Thereby hangs a bit of a tale. Leavy broke the whip rules five times in the first half of this year, triggering a 17-day totting-up ban – a very frustrating bump in the road for a young jockey in the process of forging new alliances.

It might not seem a terrible offence if you use the whip just once more than the rules allow but it's an expensive habit these days. For four of the breaches that got Leavy his long ban, that was all he'd done.

Anyway, the hope is that he can now manage to stay on the right side of the stewards – not least because the totting-up punishment included a further eight-day suspension which will be triggered if he breaks the whip rules again in the next six months.

He returned from that long suspension just over a week ago and immediately plunged into the hot run described above, which was all the more welcome in the circumstances.

Leavy has a ride for Hannon at Kempton this afternoon, who is priced in the low double-figures at the time of writing.

"The two-year-old looks like she'll have to step forward," the jockey says of Perfect Ruby. "She knows her job and she's up in trip, so hopefully she can progress. She's a big filly, she'll only get better with time."

Who Am I?

Today's clue:

"Here's one of my jockeys reflecting on me in his autobiography - so this wasn't some spur-of-the-moment bit of euphoria in the winner's enclosure, his comments were the result of mature reflection at the end of a long career. 'One characteristic above all stuck out,' he wrote of me. 'His determination. More than any horse I've ridden, I could feel him trying. Come the moment for his maximum effort, he would lower himself towards the ground, put his head down and stretch out as if his life depended on it. He was a great horse.' How about that for an epitaph, eh?"

It's the start of a new week in our 'Who Am I?' quiz, based around a different racing personality each week. We'll give you a new clue every day, with the answer revealed on Friday.

Think you know who it is? Email frontrunner@racingpost.com to say who. I'll give a mention to everyone who gets it right.

Congratulations to last week's winner, Paul Ryan, who was first to figure out that Mick Kinane was the jockey who used to win the Arc every ten years, among other major achievements.

Two things to look out for today

1 It's early in the career of Ollie Sangster but he seems like a man to have on your side in two-year-old races, in which sphere he's already had ten winners this year at a strike-rate of 21 per cent in turf races. He's also two from four in nurseries, so look out for his Holbrook in the opener (2.10) at Kempton. The colt was noted making promising late headway after being outpaced at the minimum trip on his May debut at Leicester. He should be more comfortable on this step up to a mile.

Holbrook14:10 Kempton (A.W)

View Racecard

Jky: Nicola Currie Tnr: Ollie Sangster

2 You were in trouble if you weren't following Iain Jardine at Ayr on Saturday night – the Dumfriesshire trainer won four of the six races, including handicap scorers at 12-1 and 16-1. He's back at the west coast track today with ten runners, at least one in every race, and punters clearly have to take him seriously. His last-time winners Pembrokeshire, The Gay Blade and Dingwall will naturally be popular but look out also for Believe Me Now (3.00), a newcomer to his yard who showed bits of potential in her first season in Ireland, and Novak (4.10), a dual winner at this course last year who ran well to be second on his recent return from a break.

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The Front Runner is our unmissable email newsletter available exclusively to Members' Club Ultimate subscribers. Chris Cook, the reigning Racing Writer of the Year, provides his take on the day's biggest stories and tips for the upcoming racing every morning from Monday to Friday. Not a Members' Club Ultimate subscriber? Click here to join today and also receive our Ultimate Daily emails plus our full range of fantastic website and newspaper content.