In the world of horse racing, there are essentially three parts to the success of a horse. The first is the horse itself, with each and every equine participant having their own innate skills and abilities.

The second is the jockey, who is able to take a horse and guide it around the course, working with it to get the very best out of it in any given race. Arguably the most important, though, is the trainer.

It is the trainer that discovers those innate talents and nurtures them, teaching the horse in question how to get the most out of its ability in the search for the potential of more success.

The Top Ten Trainers with the Most Wins

The first thing to point out when looking at the list is that we’re only looking at the winners of British races. There are any number of American trainers who have won a huge number of events during their careers, but our focus is just on those that have won in the United Kingdom on the flat and in National Hunt events.

It is important to point out that the information surrounding how many winners each trainer has managed isn’t exactly, not least because more than a few of them are still working as trainers at the time of writing. In spite of this, this is our best guess based on the research:

A * denotes that the trainer is still working at the time of writing. It is worth pointing out that more than half of the top ten are still active in the world of horse training, which is why their numbers are only estimates.

In the case of Mark Johnston, he actually handed his licence to his son, Charlie Johnston, in 2023, but remains an active part of the yard.

Taking a Closer Look at Each Trainer

We have a rough idea of how many races run in the United Kingdom each trainer has been fortunate enough to enter the Winners’ Enclosure for, but now we can take a closer look at each person and see how their careers have panned out.

There is also an argument that Sir Henry Cecil should appear on the list, but exact figures around the number of winners he trained aren’t available.

Mark Johnston

Back in 2018, Mark Johnston became the all-time record holder for the number of British winners by a racehorse trainer. Frankie Dettori was on the back of Poet’s Society as it crossed the finish line with odds of 20/1, taking him past the 4,193 mark set by Richard Hannon Sr. He didn’t stop there, however. In 2022, the trainer celebrated his 5,000th winner when Dubai Mile won at Kempton Park. It was a remarkable achievement for the trainer, who was born in Glasgow in 1959 and won countless different races during his career, including Classics and versions of the Classics in the likes of Ireland and Germany.

Richard Hannon Sr

When Johnston won that 4,194th British race, it was Richard Hannon Sr’s record that he ended up breaking. He trained 32 winners at Royal Ascot during a career that saw him train more than 100 winners in a season on 20 occasions. If that weren’t enough, he also trained more than 200 winners on five occasions. It is, perhaps, little surprise that he chose to hang up his training boots at the end of 2013, given there was little that he had left to win. He handed the yard over to his son, Richard Hannon Jr, but not until he had won five Classics across two of the different races, amongst many others.

Sir Michael Stoute

Sir Michael Stoute’s position on this list is all the more remarkable when you consider that he didn’t even leave the island of Barbados until he was a 19-year-old. He was born there because his father was the Chief of Police for the island, eventually departing in order to become assistant trainer to Pat Rohan. It was in 1972 that he started to train horses on his own, achieving his first win in the April of that year. He made history when he became the only trainer of the 20th century to train the winner of an English Classic in five successive seasons, as well as wins in the likes of the Breeders’ Cup.

Willie Mullins

Ask someone with a passing interest in the world of horse racing to name the top ten most successful trainers in the sport and there is a very good chance that Willie Mullins’ name will be mentioned. The Irish trainer was born in 1956 and went on to become the most successful trainer ever at the Cheltenham Festival. By 2025 he had saddled more than 100 winners at the meeting, as well as seeing his horse win the 2024 Grand National and the same event a year later. With events such as the Queen Mother Champion Chase and the King George VI Chase to his name, it’s no wonder he’s considered to be one of the best in the business.

Martin Pipe

If you want to have a credit bestowed upon you, being considered to be a large part of the reason why the British racehorse training industry became professional isn’t a bad one to boast. The son of a bookmaker, Pipe became an amateur jockey prior to turning his hand to training horses in 1974. When he retired in 2006, his son, David Pipe, took over the mantle and Martin became his assistant. He had initially trained horses on his own father’s farm, but it was when 66/1 Baron Blakeney won the Triumph Hurdle in 1981 over the nailed-on favourite Broadsword that his ability began to be noticed.

John Dunlop

John Dunlop should probably have gone into the world of jump racing when you consider that his middle name is ‘Leeper’. Instead, he trained 74 winners of Group One races, within which ten of them were Classics. When you train more than 3,000 winners overall, it’s fair to say that you’re going to be considered to be a talented person in your field. With that in mind, he was named the British Flat Racing Champion Trainer in 1995, having taken out his training licence almost 30 years before. He is widely credited as being behind the Middle Eastern influence on the world of British racing.

Paul Nicholls

You might well have expected Paul Nicholls to come from a racing family, but in reality his father was actually a police officer. He left school when he was a 16-year-old in order to work at a local yard training point-to-point runners, initially becoming a conditional jockey before he was made a stable jockey for David Barons in 1986. He took out his trainer’s licence five years later, going on to become one of the most successful trainers of the modern era. There is barely a National Hunt race that Nicholls hasn’t been in the Winners’ Enclosure for, winning four Cheltenham Gold Cups, 12 King George VI Chases and six Queen Mother Champion Chases during a sparkling career.

Nicky Henderson

It is obviously not outrageous to suggest that a British racehorse trainer might well have won a few British races during their career, with Nicky Henderson having won virtually all there is to win in the sport. The son of Johnny Henderson, who helped to create the Racecourse Holdings Trust, he was educated at Eton College before becoming a trainer in 1978. He had previously been an amateur jockey and worked as the assistant to Fred Winter, which is about as good an education in the trade as you can hope to have. Only Willie Mullins has won more Cheltenham Festival races than Henderson has managed.

Barry Hills

Barrington William Hills, better known as Barry, was born in Worcester in 1937 and died in the June of 2025. In between those two years, he achieved a huge amount, working as an apprentice jockey to Fred Rimmell before he got a training licence of his own in 1969. By the end of the year 2000, Hills had trained 2,166 winners in British racing, training his 3,000th in 2009. On the 22nd of August 2011, he decided to retire as a trainer and his son, Charles Hill, took over the licence. Winning the likes of the 1,000 Guineas, the 2,000 Guineas and the St Leger, his career was one of extreme highs.

Richard Fahey

Based in North Yorkshire at Malton, Fahey had saddled more than 60 winners of Group One and Listed winners across the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and Canada by the August of 2025. Some of those big wins include events such as the Commonwealth Cup, the Champions Sprint Stakes and the Queen Anne Stakes, showing that he knows what he’s talking about as a trainer. The decision to become a trainer came off the back of a successful career as a jockey, winning more than 100 races. In the world of flat racing, there aren’t many events that Fahey hasn’t trained a winner of.