Certain jockeys are more prolific than others and that is a fact of horse racing. A.P McCoy annually rides in excess of 250 winners whilst the likes of Ruby Walsh and Barry Geraghty seem to land the spoils in the big races almost every Saturday afternoon.

To put it simply, jockeys such as the above are at the top of the tree in the weighing room. They are retained by the trainers with the biggest stables, best facilities and more importantly, by and large, the best quality of horses.

However, to follow a jockey religiously is pure folly. Betting on horses purely on the basis of the man in the cockpit will lead to serious losses over the long run. Although not a day goes by where the champion jockey doesn’t get past the post first, he, like many other of the top jockeys, rides losers in droves.

As a rough percentage, even the crème de la crème of horsemen ride around 80% of losers. You do not need to be a mathematician therefore to deduce from such a ratio that gains cannot be made from technically betting on the jockeys, rather than the horses.

Carefully following jockey mounts is a different story however.

Indeed if a horse is strongly fancied, the boost of a positive jockey booking is a good thing to look out for. And, on most occasions, the very best races in the calendar are picked up by the big trainers and high profile jockeys. For instance at the Cheltenham Festival, following the combination of Paul Nicholls and Ruby Walsh in the right races could be very profitable.

Moreover, jockey bookings can be extremely significant if a horse from an unknown stable is fancied. If a small stable, with limited resources books a largely successful jockey that they will not retain, it not only enhances the horses chance on the sheer surface of things but it also implies that connections of the horse are very confident about it’s chances – and hence paying a bigger fee for a certain jockey is going to be worthwhile.

Little indicators like this can be crucial to selecting winners and well priced winners at that. However they are still not foolproof and they do not make anything a certainty.

One thing is certain however and that is you must avoid religiously laying cash on the line just to follow a jockey in the hope that a long winning run is struck – because it isn’t going to happen.