Justin Maillard chasing 20 wins and a cleaner finish to 2026

Justin Maillard doesn’t need reminding what happened last year. A promising run of wins dried up completely once the summer heat set in, and the 19-year-old apprentice spent months waiting out a form drought that stretched all the way to December. It’s the one thing he’s determined not to repeat.

The young jockey-driver, based since late March with trainer Grégory Thorel, has quietly built one of the more balanced records among France’s current crop of apprentices. He made his debut on 2 April 2023 at La Guerche-de-Bretagne, finishing third aboard Exploit Gédé, and picked up his first win six months later at Châlons-en-Champagne with Hey You.

Since then the numbers have climbed steadily rather than spectacularly. As of 1 August, Maillard has ridden or driven in 445 races, 357 of them under saddle and 88 in harness, for 31 wins split 21 monté and 10 in harness. That split matters to him. He currently sits third in the combined apprentice standings and sixth in the mounted rankings specifically, and it’s the combined figure he watches most closely.

“Since I want to win both mounted and harnessed races, this is the ranking I place the most importance on,” Maillard told Le Trot.

It’s a telling line for a rider who hasn’t picked a lane. Plenty of apprentices settle early into one discipline or the other. Maillard has kept both going, and it’s part of why he points to Alexis Collette as the driver he most admires, someone who’s built a career on the same willingness to work hard across monté and harness rather than specialising out of one.

The goal for the rest of the year is straightforward enough on paper: around 20 more wins. What matters more to Maillard is consistency getting there. Last year’s pattern, a hot start followed by a stretch where nothing landed, is exactly what he wants to avoid this time, and the improving strike rate through 2026 suggests the platform is there if the form holds.

Maillard’s profile is the fifth and final instalment in Le Trot’s summer series on French apprentice riders, following pieces on Martin Goetz, Étienne Delaunay, Jean Ferron and Cléa Roger. The series has offered a rare season-long look at where French trotting’s next generation stands, and Maillard’s numbers, built across both codes rather than one, close it out as one of the more distinctive stories in the group.

With five months of the season still to run and Thorel’s stable behind him, the next stretch will tell Maillard whether the improvement holds through the months that undid him last year.

 

by Harnesslink Media