Saffie Osborne the rising star of Yorkshire racing

The 21-year-old Lambourn-based jockey is the daughter of former National Hunt jockey turned successful Flat trainer, Jamie, who was brought up outside Wetherby.

He is the son of Tony and Angela Osborne, well known figures in racing, with Tony a former director of Market Rasen racecourse.

Saffie Osborne said: “I always love coming up to Yorkshire. My grandparents are from up there and I spent a lot of time there as a kid.

“Everyone is always so friendly up there and I always get lots of people coming up to me saying they knew my grandparents when I am riding at Yorkshire tracks.”

Osborne drew a blank from her four rides at last weekend’s Betfred St Leger Festival, with her best outcome second place in Sunday’s Hippo Carpet Protector Handicap on Ed Dunlop’s Richard P Smith.

For Osborne, a successful eventer growing up, York is her pick of Yorkshire’s nine tracks, with the Ebor Festival a particular favourite.

“When you get to York it’s a seriously special meeting. Apart from Royal Ascot the buzz you get there is absolutely amazing and I love riding up north,” she said.

“Doncaster is great but at York you are still in the middle of summer and the buzz at that track is phenomenal and there’s always packed stands.”

Osborne hit the headlines earlier this month when she claimed the top jockey honours at this year’s Racing League competition, successfully defending the title she claimed 12 months earlier and winning £20,000 in the process.

But her team, Wales and the West, winners in 2022 after she rode a winning treble of her father's horses on the final night at Newcastle, were again led by Jamie and just pipped to the title by Ireland.

Osborne also made her Shergar Cup debut last month, riding a double as the Girls team, which also featured Hayley Turner and Hollie Doyle, claimed the trophy at Ascot.

She admits the team successes have helped raise her profile: “I have just been very lucky in a couple of those competitions.

“They have been great for my career and have helped me up on to a slightly bigger stage.

“It’s been a fairly transformative few months for my career with the likes of Metier winning the Chester Cup and then Random Harvest winning a big one at Ascot.

“Then obviously those two key competitions, so yes, it's been a brilliant few months for me and great for my career. I seem to have dropped on a bit of luck.

“I have ridden some great horses for different trainers that I would not necessarily have ridden for during those competitions. It is great prize money and hopefully when they go on to run again you stay on them so it has been brilliant.”

While Osborne’s career is just starting to really get going, her idol growing up, Frankie Dettori, is about to bow out.

“Frankie was my idol growing up and obviously Hayley [Turner] paved the way for all of us with a couple of breakthrough winners.

“But I think because I have always been brought up in racing and around horses I never really thought any different if you were a boy or a girl, so for me it was Frankie.”

Looking to the future, the young rider, who overcame serious injuries after a horror fall at Windsor earlier in her career, is hoping to go right to the top.

Having ridden ?? winners this year and earned just shy of £1million in prize money riding for the likes of her father, Ed Dunlop, Harry Fry, James Ferguson and Andrew Balding, she is hoping to broaden her experience with a winter in Australia.

She said: “I think riding big winners around the world is always the aim for any aspiring jockey and one day to hopefully be Champion Jockey is another. I’m making winter plans and hopefully going to Australia in mid-November for a few months, so it will be great to get experience riding down there.”