Most successful Champions Day jockeys

Ascot has staged British Champions Day every October since 2011, and the shape of it has not changed. Five championship races, all of them now Group 1, bring the Flat season’s best horses together for a final settling of arguments. Anyone studying the Champions Day odds in the weeks before the meeting will notice the same riding names sitting near the head of the market. Across 15 meetings and 75 championship races, a small group has done most of the winning.

Frankie Dettori stands alone

Dettori won 11 of those 75 races, more than double the next rider on the list. He took the Champion Stakes three times, on Cracksman in 2017 and 2018 and King Of Steel in 2023, and the Long Distance Cup three times, on Flying Officer in 2015, Stradivarius in 2018 and Trawlerman in 2023. Add three Fillies & Mares Stakes, with Journey in 2016, Star Catcher in 2019 and Emily Upjohn in 2022, the Sprint on Kinross in 2022 and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Persuasive in 2017. He rode a double on the card in 2018, 2022 and 2023.

That total is now fixed. Dettori retired on 1 February 2026 at the age of 55, signing off with a Grade 1 winner at Gavea in Rio de Janeiro, and has since joined Amo Racing as an adviser.

Ryan Moore, the nearest rival

Moore has five, every one of them for Aidan O’Brien. Minding took the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes in 2016, Order of St George and Hydrangea gave him a double on the 2017 card, Magical won the Fillies & Mares in 2018 and Kyprios landed the Long Distance Cup in 2024.

His 2026 has been heavy on Ascot. Moore was leading rider at the royal meeting in June, completed the full set of its Group 1 races when Mission Central won the King Charles III Stakes, and took the Gold Cup on Scandinavia, O’Brien’s 100th Royal Ascot winner.

William Buick and the Godolphin machine

Buick’s four have come in three different races: Wonderful Tonight in the 2020 Fillies & Mares, Creative Force in the 2021 Sprint, Kalpana in the 2024 Fillies & Mares and Trawlerman in the 2025 Long Distance Cup.

His season has centred on Ombudsman, who won the Dubai Turf at Meydan in March and then retained the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot by four lengths. In the British Flat jockeys’ championship he sits on 55 winners from 235 rides, a strike rate of 23% that nobody above him can match.

Hollie Doyle and Trueshan

Three of Doyle’s four came on the same horse. Trueshan won the Long Distance Cup in 2020, 2021 and 2022 for Alan King, while Glen Shiel took the Sprint in 2020, the pair of them giving her the first Group 1 winners of her career on a single afternoon.

Her 2026 ended early. Doyle reached 1,000 British winners in March, then broke her left leg in a fall at Bath in May. She was back on a racecourse at Windsor in August as part of her recovery and hopes to ride again before the turn of the year.

Jim Crowley and Pat Smullen

Crowley also has four. Madame Chiang won the Fillies & Mares in 2014, Eshaada and Baaeed gave him a double in 2021, the latter in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, and Anmaat landed the Champion Stakes at 40-1 in 2024, his final Group 1 in the Shadwell colours. Crowley retired on 1 August 2026, aged 48, after a fall at York left him needing repeated surgery, and now plans to train.

Smullen matched that four between 2012 and 2015, taking the Long Distance Cup with Rite Of Passage and Forgotten Rules, the Fillies & Mares with Sapphire and the Champion Stakes with Fascinating Rock. He died in 2020.

What the record says

Run back through the horse racing results from all 15 renewals and the pattern is clear enough. Champions Day rewards riders tied to yards that keep a good horse in training at four, five and six. Dettori had John Gosden, Moore has O’Brien, Buick has Godolphin and Doyle had Trueshan. The 2026 meeting falls on 17 October, and with Dettori and Crowley both retired, the top of that list has room to move for the first time in years. Betting is for over-18s only.