Paul Townend is now odds-on for a seventh champion jockey title

Paul Townend is the red-hot 1/3 favourite with BoyleSports to overhaul Jack Kennedy’s lead and claim a seventh Champion Jockey title this season. 

With the season finale at the Punchestown Festival less than four weeks away, Townend finds himself just four winners adrift of championship leader Jack Kennedy who is having his most successful season yet, with 116 winners. 

Kennedy, a 2/1 chance to win his maiden title, had his dreams dashed last year after breaking his leg at Naas in early January which saw him on the sidelines for five months, eventually finishing thirty winners adrift of Townend who scored his fifth Champion Jockey title in a row. 

Despite having just over half the amount of rides as Jack Kennedy, Townend has scored an impressive 112 winners with a season strike rate of over 39%, while Kennedy’s strike rate lies at 23% having ridden 116 winners from 505 rides. 

Townend has recorded a strike rate of over 30% in each of the last five seasons as the all-conquering Closutton team continue to field the vast majority of his rides. Having ridden in 284 races this year, Townend has had just five outside rides, none of which have harvested a winner. 

As the season and championship draw to a close, Punchestown provides the gilt-edged opportunity Townend needs to overcome his current deficit with Jack Kennedy, with Willie Mullins fielding 17 winners at the meeting in 2023 and 14 in 2022, with Townend riding a total of 20 of the 31 winners. The meeting has often proved to be a Willie Mullins benefit and Kennedy rode just two winners at the festival in 2022, having missed the meeting through injury last year. 

Brian O’Keeffe, spokesperson for BoyleSports, said: “It looks like Punchestown will be the decider for this year’s National Hunt Jockeys’ Championship and if Jack Kennedy can’t build up a significant lead before then, Paul Townend looks set to win his seventh title.”