The pacesetters: which jumps trainers and jockeys have hit the ground running?

After a break of 12 days, the longest in the 2022-23 calendar, British jump racing returns with meetings at Perth and Market Rasen on Saturday. With the winter horses now all back in from the field and with less than two months until Chepstow's Persian War meeting on October 7, we take a look at the early pacesetters who have been making their mark during the summer months.

Trainers

1. Fergal O'Brien

Winners: 45
Prize-money: £375,207
Strike-rate: 23 per cent

Fergal O'Brien has replicated his superb summer form of recent years and is well on course to surpass a century of winners for the third successive season. O'Brien sent out six winners in a row across two days at Newton Abbot, Worcester and Perth just before the break, illustrating his prolific form and placing prowess.

2. David Pipe

Winners: 23
Prize-money: £290,760
Strike-rate: 16 per cent

Only Fergal O'Brien has sent out more runners than David Pipe so far this season, thanks largely in part to the durability of horses owned by Judith Wilson. The distinctive red, black and white silks of Wilson have been a staple of summer jumps racing with seven of her horses accounting for 11 of Pipe's 23 winners, most notably four-time scorer Al Roc.

3. Donald McCain

Winners: 25
Prize-money: £211,557
Strike-rate: 22 per cent

Fresh from training a career-best haul of 155 winners in 2021-22, Donald McCain has started the season in similar fashion with a strike-rate just one per cent below that record-breaking season. McCain's Minella Trump beat Galway Plate hero Hewick in a novice chase last year, and the Tim Leslie-owned eight-year-old's Perth Gold Cup win in June has been the Cheshire-based trainer's most valuable success so far.

4. Paul Nicholls

Winners: 17
Prize-money: £208,499
Strike-rate: 28 per cent

The 13-time champion trainer has had a typically selective approach to summer jumping but has kept the prize-money ticking over with his Grade 2-winning chaser Tamaroc Du Mathan landing the Sussex Champion Chase at Plumpton in May. Hell Red and Wild Max have also taken to fences well, winning three races apiece as Nicholls readies his talented winter squad at Ditcheat.

Paul Nicholls: the champion trainer has saddled the fewest runners (61) of the top five in the trainer's championshipCredit: Alan Crowhurst

5. Neil Mulholland

Winners: 21
Prize-money: £187,747
Strike-rate: 17 per cent

Neil Mulholland has trained more than 50 winners for each of the last three seasons and looks set to do so again, helped by a busy period in May when he sent out ten winners including the ultra-consistent
Exelerator Express at Aintree. Ragamuffin, Ballymilan and Planned Paradise have all successfully transitioned to chasing and could go in again as Mulholland seeks to maintain his best strike-rate since 2016-17.

Jockeys

1. Brian Hughes

Winners: 50
Rides: 214
Strike-rate: 23 per cent

The champion jockey had trailed the red-hot Sean Bowen for much of the opening months of the season, but he has recently moved clear at the top of the standings after a stunning July resulted in 19 winners. Hughes, who reached his half-century with a double at Bangor on his last rides before the break, has ridden more winners than he had at this point last term, when he became only the fourth jump jockey in history to ride 200 or more winners in a season.

2. Sean Bowen

Winners: 46
Rides: 170
Strike-rate: 27 per cent

Sean Bowen has combined with Gordon Elliott to great effect this season, riding 16 winners from 38 rides for the Cullentra trainer. Bowen has become the go-to rider for Elliott's British raiders, which has helped contribute to the jockey's best-ever start to a season, along with the usual support from father Peter, Martin Keighley, Olly Murphy and Gary Hanmer.

Sean Bowen (right): partnering Gordon Elliott's (left) horses to great effect this seasonCredit: Grossick Racing

3. Paddy Brennan

Winnes: 25
Rides: 74
Strike-rate: 34 per cent

Multiple Grade 1-winning rider Paddy Brennan is enjoying comfortably the best strike-rate of his 23-year career, helping Accidental Rebel, Pop The Champagne and Mortlach to hat-tricks for boss Fergal O'Brien.

4. Kielan Woods

Winners: 24
Rides: 95
Strike-rate: 25 per cent

Dual Cheltenham Festival-winning rider Kielan Woods is benefiting from the decent summer being enjoyed by Ben Pauling, to whom he is stable jockey. Woods is also riding more for Fergal O'Brien as well as continuing successful relationships with David Jeffreys and Alex Hales, with the rider needing just ten more winners to secure a career-best season.

5. Sam Twiston-Davies

Winners: 24
Rides: 146
Strike-rate: 16 per cent

Sam Twiston-Davies has reached a century of winners in a season seven times and looks set to do so again after contributing well to Neil Mulholland's strong start. As well as Mulholland, Twiston-Davies will have the support of father Nigel and Richard Newland – who was unable to send out any horses for the majority of June due to an outbreak of equine herpes in his yard – in his bid for another 100.

Conditionals

1. Philip Armson

Winners: 18
Rides: 115
Strike-rate: 16 per cent

Philip Armson has ridden more winners this term than he had in his four previous seasons as a conditional combined. Armson, who was without a winner from 65 rides in 2019-20, has already ridden out his 7lb claim and needs just two more winners for the 5lb claim to go as well. Being the regular rider of Judith Wilson's horses has helped, but Armson has also built up a valuable contact in Alex Dunn and ridden a winner for father Richard and Sara Ender.

Philip Armson: regular rider for Judith Wilson's horsesCredit: Alan Crowhurst

2. Kevin Brogan

Winners: 13
Rides: 70
Strike-rate: 19 per cent

Last season's champion conditional needed just one winner this season to ride out his claim and it did not take him long to do so, securing his landmark 75th career winner aboard Rookie Trainer at Worcester in May. Brogan's stock has continued to rise since his relocation from Ireland to Jonjo O'Neill's in 2020.

3. Harry Kimber

Winners: 7
Rides: 25
Strike-rate: 28 per cent

A host of conditionals are tied on seven winners including Emma Smith-Chaston, Luca Morgan, Lily Pinchin, Theo Gillard and Tom Midgley. However, Harry Kimber has had the least amount of rides to reach his seven and is unbeaten on four different horses this season including Keiran Burke's Soul Icon, who he rode to back-to-back wins at Uttoxeter.

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