A casual glance at the table of top trainers from the most recent flat turf season would suggest a standard campaign; the names are the same, the top five in the same order as 2022 with Aidan O’Brien first, followed by Joseph O’Brien, Jessica Harrington, Ger Lyons and Johnny Murtagh.

Digging into the total winners trained, however, and we see that the numbers are quite different. Aidan O’Brien got his, as he invariably does, with 105 winners in all, the exact same as last year following on from 87 and 103 before that.