But when you start with zero, and have to make your own way, you can only build gradually. We've got everything here and in the last couple of years we're just starting to build to a better grade of a horse. “This place is a five-star hotel for these horses and we're very, very lucky. “It's taken me 30, 40 years in the industry to get to where I am today,” Mark acknowledges. Mark Loughnane | Liz Vanegas de Quickenden

And it is only in coming to this sumptuous, purpose-built facility, five years ago, that he has finally been able to give full rein to the talent and passion so immediately apparent in his adolescent son. After a long education in old-school jumping yards, both sides of the Irish Sea, Mark has had to make several fresh starts since going solo in 2002. (Other jockeys have ridden seven of those, from 41 starters.) To put that in context, Mark's best campaign to date comprised 41 wins in 2021.Īnd if you come and visit Rock Farm Stables, in a glorious bowl of undulating Worcestershire countryside, it all stands to reason. But it has not just been Billy's apprentice claim that has driven the stable's prolific start to 2023, with 17 winners already from only 76 runners. Naturally Mark is proud to see the blossoming of a talent he has long known to be out of the ordinary. And you can be certain of one thing: whatever Billy's future may hold, his prospects are immeasurably enhanced by the decades of unsung daily endeavour that have taken a whole family to this point. Because before Mark Loughnane suddenly found himself being described as Billy's father, Billy was Mark Loughnane's son. But actually this implausibly compressed breakout has been a long time in the making–and not merely in terms of the proportion of Billy's young life fanatically dedicated to a precocious sense of vocation. On the face of it, he has risen without trace. It's so extraordinary that Billy Loughnane has even been featured on the evening news by the BBC, a gratifying departure from the indifference of mainstream media to all but the least flattering tales of the Turf.

And, for another week anyway, he's just 16 years old. He only got his licence in October but when he left the all-weather circuit last month, for a three-week stint in Florida, he was Britain's leading jockey with 23 wins from 98 mounts in January.

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