STUDY: Does jockey experience influence win rates and earnings?

Does the number of years a Thoroughbred jockey has been riding influence their win rate and earnings?

The career of an elite jockey can last for decades. It’s not uncommon for jockeys to win major races in their 40s and 50s. But does years of experience counterbalance the benefits of youth, which can be an advantage for athletes in so many other sports?

To find out how experience affects the win rates and earnings of top jockeys, we’ve crunched a wealth of numbers and analyzed the results.

Jockey research methodology

Our analysis covers the top 30 jockeys of 2024 according to the purse money they earned. This allows up to sample a group of accomplished jockeys who frequently ride with success in races where there’s significant money on the line.

We’ve divided these 30 jockeys into three categories based on the year of their earliest ride in North America per industry database Equibase. The largest group of jockeys, 16, boasted between 11-20 years of experience. Nine jockeys claimed more than 20 years of experience, and five had been riding for 10 years or less.

Jockey data analysis

Below is a table showing the overall starts, win rates, and average earnings per start for the three jockey experience categories:

Jockeys with a decade or less of riding experience had the lowest overall win rate, 15%. This was mildly lower than jockeys with over 20 years of experience (16%) and several points lower than jockeys with 11-20 years of experience, who topped the rankings with an average win rate of 19%.

Digging into these numbers a little further, seven of the 16 jockeys in the 11-20 years category boasted win rates between 20% and 24%, whereas none of the jockeys with over 20 years of experience exceeded 19% and those with 10 or fewer years of experience achieved a maximum 18% win rate.

The least-experienced jockeys also had the lowest average earnings per start at $11,224. Jockeys with 11-20 years of experience fared better with average earnings of $16,055 per start, but it was the jockeys with over 20 years of experience who earned the most per ride at $18,637, topping the other two categories by 66% and 16%, respectively.

What is driving the high win rates for jockeys with 11-20 years of experience? 

It may be partly the fact jockeys in this experience bracket ride the most races. In 2024, they averaged 1,097 rides compared to 726 for jockeys with over 20 years of experience and 906 for jockeys who had been riding for 10 years or less. It stands to reason that jockeys in the 11-20 years bracket are in high demand and thus ride a large number of well-regarded horses, though this hypothesis can’t be tested with our dataset.

However, we can gain additional clues by digging into the fact jockeys with over 20 years of experience earn more per start than jockeys in the 11-20 years group. This monetary success is driven in part by the fact veteran jockeys are often named to ride high-profile horses in rich graded stakes races. Their experience is valued on big days, and this shows up when analyzing the win rates and earnings per start of the three jockey categories in graded stakes:

Here we find a few interesting data points. Jockeys with 10 or fewer years of riding experience have the highest win rate in graded stakes, 14%. They also have the second-highest earnings per start, $58,895.

The win rate for jockeys with 11-20 years of experience drops sharply, from 19% overall to 12% in graded stakes. The win rate for jockeys with over 20 years of experience is likewise 12%, dropping a smaller amount from 16% overall. Even though jockeys in these two categories win at an identical 12% rate, the average amount they earn per start varies widely. Jockeys with over 20 years of experience earned $59,122, about 13% more than the $52,139 average compiled by jockeys with 11-20 years of experience.

Conclusions

One year and 30 of the most accomplished jockeys is a limited sample size. But there are a few notable takeaways from the data:

• Jockeys with 11-20 years of riding experience are in the primes of their careers and widely in demand. They often ride over 1,000 horses a year and win a higher percentage of starts (19% on average) than jockeys with more experience, over 20+ years (16%), and less experience, under 11 years (15%).
   
• Notwithstanding the above, win rates in graded stakes are similar for jockeys of all experience levels.
   
• Jockeys with over 20 years of experience make a higher percentage of their starts (11%) in graded stakes, compared to jockeys in the 11-20 years bracket (8%) and jockeys who have been riding 10 years or less (6%).
   
• Presumably because they spend more of their time riding in graded stakes, jockeys with over 20 years of experience earn 16% more purse money per start than jockeys with 11-20 years of experience and 66% more than jockeys with 10 or fewer years of experience.

Combining all of these elements together, it appears the win rates and earnings of North America’s top Thoroughbred jockeys are influenced by the types and number of races they ride—which is affected by their years of experience—instead of their years of experience directly. When riding in a specific subset of lucrative races (graded stakes), the jockeys in all three experience categories recorded similar success metrics.