“I want to ride more Group One winners,” Billy Loughnane said last month when asked to name his main ambition for 2027, and Britain’s new 20-year-old champion jockey seems all but certain to achieve his aim, following Wednesday’s news that he has signed a retainer to ride in the royal blue colours of Sheikh Mohammed’s global Godolphin operation next year.

Loughnane will be contracted alongside William Buick as one of two retained Godolphin jockeys next year, and not as an outright No 1, but even if Loughnane does not claim the lion’s share of the best rides as soon as next year, his trajectory within the operation seems clear.

That, in turn, can only add to the hopes within the sport that Loughnane is a potential successor to Frankie Dettori , Godolphin’s first and most successful No 1 rider, as a “crossover” talent with the charisma to build a public and media profile beyond the confines of the racing bubble.

Loughnane has been swatting away comparisons with Dettori, who was a relative veteran when he…