By Scott Bailey
Next Wednesday night racing fans will see James McDonald front and centre at the Longines International Jockeys Challenge where he will have a bit more swagger and confidence heading into the event after being crowned the ‘Worlds Best Jockey’ for a third time. Since 2014 four separate riders have shared the title including McDonald, Ryan Moore, Frankie Dettori and Hugh Bowman. A terrific lineup of world class riders.
Twelve months after a record-smashing Cox Plate and a second Longines World’s Best Jockey title, the Kiwi-born, Sydney-based superstar has gone and done both again – this time with even more history attached.
The numbers behind that crown are brutal. Across the qualifying period McDonald won 12 of the world’s Top 100 Group or Grade 1 races, racking up 184 points and finishing well clear of Mickael Barzalona (132) and William Buick (114) on the Longines leaderboard.
At the heart of it all was a mare and a partnership that has become racing’s travelling roadshow of dominance: Via Sistina and J-Mac.
The Chris Waller-trained star didn’t just defend her Cox Plate crown; she gave McDonald one of the most remarkable streaks in modern racing. Her gripping victory in the 2025 Ladbrokes Cox Plate – staving off stablemate Buckaroo in the final running at the old Moonee Valley – was her second straight win in Australasia’s weight-for-age championship, and McDonald’s fourth Cox Plate in succession after earlier wins on Anamoe (2022) and Romantic Warrior (2023).
It’s the kind of line you’d usually reserve for Winx and Hugh Bowman. Now James McDonald sits alongside that level of company.
The Cox Plate was just one piece of a season where Via Sistina became a one-mare Group 1 factory. She and McDonald combined to win the Verry Elleegant Stakes, Ranvet Stakes, Queen Elizabeth Stakes, Winx Stakes, Cox Plate and Champions Stakes in 2025.
If Flemington felt like her playground when she went back-to-back in the Champions Stakes, Moonee Valley is her amphitheatre. The 2024 Cox Plate was McDonald’s 100th Group 1 win and a track-record demolition that beat Winx’s time by almost two seconds; the 2025 edition was a grind, a fight, a centimetre-perfect ride that delivered his fourth consecutive Plate and secured Waller a sixth, putting Via Sistina in the conversation with the race’s all-time stars.
By the time he legged up on her this spring, McDonald was already being referred to as a 120-time Group 1 winner, a line that tells you just how quickly his tally has exploded since that first major as a teenager all those years ago in his native New Zealand.
What makes the 2025 season so frightening for everyone else is that it wasn’t just one horse in one jurisdiction. McDonald’s Longines points came from three different countries, three different systems and a spread of top-line stables.
In Hong Kong he turned Sha Tin into a personal playground, riding Romantic Warrior to victory in the Longines Hong Kong Cup, and sweeping three majors on Voyage Bubble – the Hong Kong Mile , Stewards’ Cup and Champions & Chater Cup. These were elite-level wins at one of the toughest racing jurisdictions in the world, all in the same season, underlined how completely he has been embraced as a global big-race rider.
Back in Australia, away from the Via Sistina show, he still found time to knock off Queensland’s two big autumn sprints – the Doomben 10,000 on Sunshine In Paris and the Kingsford-Smith Cup on Joliestar – adding yet another dimension to a season built across every distance band.
He has a roll call of majors in Sydney and Melbourne that reads like a modern honour board. His Group 1 tally is now comfortably north of 120 wins worldwide, and he is still only 33 years of age.
What elevates McDonald beyond the numbers is how portable his brilliance has become. Trainers and owners fly him into Hong Kong, Britain or wherever the stakes are highest, and he rides as if he’s at Randwick on a Wednesday. New tracks, new horses, new systems – the rhythm is the same: quiet early, ruthless late, and almost always in the right place when it matters.
This latest Longines title – his third, and second on the bounce – is racing’s way of putting a formal stamp on something punters and participants have known for years. In a sport that spans continents and time zones, James McDonald is the constant.
Four Cox Plates in a row. A dozen of the world’s biggest Group 1s in a single season. More than 120 career majors and counting.
Right now, the world’s best jockey doesn’t just have the trophy to prove it. He’s riding like he intends to keep it. James will receive his award at the Gala Ball in Hong Kong next Friday before he contests the Hong Kong International Races on the Sunday.
