Why Billy The Kid is becoming Britain's most wanted jockey

We need to talk about Billy The Kid. Just how good is he? And is it a case of when he becomes champion jockey, rather than if?

For those in any doubt, we are talking about 19-year-old Billy Loughnane, one of the few riders in the weighing room who racing fans refer to by nickname alone. Only the elite are known by their sobriquet alone: “The Long Fellow”, “The Kentucky Kid”, “King Kieran”, “AP”, so “Billy The Kid” is in exulted company.

Of course, it helps his name is Billy and that he is more or less a kid, or was when storming to the apprentice title a couple of years ago. “Billy The Adult” or “Billy The Man” just does not have the same ring about it.

The first to be christened Billy The Kid was Henry McCarty, a notorious gunfighter in the Old West about 150 years ago. He was linked to a series of murders and violent acts, using the alias William Bonney to avoid detection before meeting his end at the end of a revolver, aged 21.

Loughnane is guilty of nothing more than being a prodigious, hugely likeable young talent, with his late ambush aboard Beylrbeyi in the Cesarewitch at Newmarket on Saturday enhancing his already burgeoning reputation.

The race that begins in one county and ends in another provides ample opportunity for jockeys to mess things up along the way, as several did on this occasion. More than one jockey got seduced by the occasion and £90,000 first prize, making up ground far too quickly, as Steve Mellish observed in Racing TV’s review show on Saturday evening.

But not Billy The Kid. He kept his powder dry, delivering one of the audacious rides of the year on a willing but tricky partner. It was the first time he had ridden in the race, and if he is still going 40 years from now, he might not give one a better ride, but probably will.

“Don’t underestimate the ride the kid has given him there,” Ian Williams, the winning trainer, said. “It was a huge performance with a horse who is mad keen and never run over this trip before. There’s a reason I booked Billy and he showed why there. It was a huge performance from the jockey and maybe not so much from the trainer, but I’m happy to be a part of it.”

Beylrbeyi was sluggish from the stalls, as is his want, but Loughnane resisted rushing him to sit closer to his 18 rivals. Instead, he let the hooded five-year-old find his feet and get into his own rhythm at the back of the field. There was two and a quarter miles ahead of them, with his ability to stay the distance an unknown.

At halfway, Loughnane and Beylrbeyi still sat last. It was only after 14 of the 18 furlongs that the pair finally moved up a place, before slowly but surely moving through the field.

By the end of the 15th furlong, five more opponents had been passed, and in the next 220 yards they negotiated another eight.

With two furlongs left to run, most eyes were drawn to Dawn Rising dashing from tenth to first. The well-backed Joseph O’Brien-trained eight-year-old, with a victory in Britain’s longest race (the Queen Alexandra Stakes) on his CV, looked to be powering to victory, but Billy The Kid was looming behind and about to pull the trigger.

Beylrbeyi moved from fifth to second with a furlong to run and then, in the final stretch, put his seal on things.

Minutes later, he gave a typically eloquent interview to Lydia Hislop, volunteering extra information about the winner’s traits and helping us develop a fuller picture, filling in parts we did not realise were missing in the first place. He is polished in and out of the saddle, with an infectious and welcoming smile. 

“My hardest part was getting him down to the start and switching him off,” said Loughnane. “He bit his tongue on the way down and he was a ball of sweat, but it didn’t stop him. Once he found a nice rhythm, he picked up and extended well. I was just trying to nurse him into it and in the last furlong he kept on well.”

There will be much better judges than me when assessing his riding style, but to my eye there is a touch of Lester Piggott about him. He’s tall, lean, sits high, bum sticking out, perfectly balanced and in tandem with the half-tonne animals underneath him.

He never seems to complicate things or get flustered. There must have been the odd indifferent ride along his short journey, a few stinkers maybe. But it’s hard to recall any.

RaceiQ’s A/E metric (actual over expected) gives us a clue as to his merit. Or at least it should do, as it measures all jockeys against the odds of the horses they have ridden over the past 12 months.

But that counts against Loughnane because the bookmakers instinctively tend to price up his mounts shorter than perhaps they should be on form, and many punters are getting into the habit of backing him blind. Also, it disregards his 80-1 success on Rashabar in last year’s Coventry at Royal Ascot, as that was more than a year ago.

So, the numbers are rather skewed.

Anything over 1 in the A/E charts is a positive. For what it is worth, Loughnane’s overall score in the past 12 months is 0.96. So almost 1, but not quite for a rider who looks like finishing a clear second to Oisin Murphy in this year’s championship, which concludes next weekend.

By way of comparison, Murphy’s A/E is 1.16, while the other trio in the top five – Rossa Ryan, Hector Crouch and Jason Hart – have scores of 0.95, 1.19 and 1.14. Murphy has been riding like a man possessed, while Crouch and Hart tend to still skim under the radar and be underestimated by bettors, despite each having had a great year.

Murphy, 30, sets the standard and will be crowned champion jockey for a fifth time at Ascot on Saturday. But he has ridden in considerably fewer races than usual this year, and if that trend continues then he will leave himself vulnerable.

Frankie Dettori was 22 when first winning the jockeys’ championship, as was Ryan Moore. Murphy was 24, the same as Piggott, while such as Kieren Fallon, who was 32, and Richard Hughes, who was 39, were slower burners.

Loughnane has a couple of years to take the crown at a younger age than all of them. Winning the title is a numbers game that requires quantity, quality, a good agent, plus the ability to avoid suspensions and the good fortune to avoid injury. Up to now, the boxes are ticked.

The majority of his 465 winners, achieved in less than three years, have been bread-and-butter handicappers, with more than half of them achieved on the all-weather. But he’s building a bank of experience, and the quality is increasing, with such as Royal Lodge winner Bow Echo showing he can handle the bigger occasions.

His tie-up with George Boughey, the trainer of that colt, provides him with a platform to challenge for the title, and he’s far from short of other suitors. Horses with low weights are out of bounds for him – his lowest riding weight in the past year has been 8st 8lb – but that’s not stopped him riding for 159 different trainers this year, with Charlie Appleby and John & Thady Gosden among his admirers.

Loughnane has grabbed those opportunities with both hands, riding 14 winners from just 26 rides in Britain for Appleby this term, and three winners from seven for Team Gosden. The former also entrusted him with riding Rebel’s Romance in the Group One Grosser Preis von Berlin in August, and he duly got the job done.

Bigger and even better days lay head, with Saturday’s latest exhibition merely likely to accelerate his ascent to the top. Billy The Kid is well on the way to becoming Britain’s most wanted jockey.