ANY of those that win, they are all stars,” mused Paul Midgley when pressed to reveal his Westow stable’s top performers.

Midgley has had a lot of ‘stars’ this year.

There’s a best-ever total of 37 winners to consider, with 22 individual victors, and a season crowned at York Racecourse in July when Smarty Socks and Highland Warrior gave him a memorable Knavesmire double.

So you could forgive Midgley for being satisfied with his year’s work.

But the former jump jockey is already looking forward. The new challenge is on the radar.

“The hardest part is doing it again next year,” he said. “We’ve been lucky to be fair. We need more to come. Even though we’ve had a good year, we wouldn’t have too many orders, but a lot of trainers you speak to are in the same scenario. It’s the way the world is at the moment.

“The main thing is trying to beat this year’s score, next year. I would have settled for 30 really. The main thing was just to beat last year’s (24).

“That’s always the scenario no matter who you are.

“A few of the two-year-olds went off the boil just as the Flat season was starting so we missed the boat really with one or two of those, but since then they have all run out of their skins.

“And you keep getting a little bit better class of horse, which helps.”

One of those is Smarty Socks, a five-year-old who had managed only one win before coming to Midgley a year ago.

Since arriving in North Yorkshire, he’s found the winner’s enclosure on six occasions – including that 33-1 success at York in the Caravan Chairman’s Charity Stakes.

Then there’s Highland Warrior. The old stager who defied the opinions to spring a 16-1 surprise in York’s Warbutons, Bakers Born and Bred Apprentice Stakes.

“To go to York, or even just to have a runner there – the local track and probably the best track in the country – is great, but to go and have a winner there was just fantastic,” Midgley said.

“Two in the same day was a fairytale.

“You get a little bit more of a profile. People notice you a little bit more, or start to notice you, and fair play to Highland Warrior.

“He won there two years ago. I think he was our first winner there and for him to go and win there again, at the age of ten, was just amazing really.”

At Midgley’s side, his “right-hand woman”, is Wendy Gibson.

You name it, she does it – riding out, driving the wagon, going to the races. There aren’t many jobs not on the 32-year-old’s list.

Also a talented lady amateur rider, Gibson is about to resume race riding after a horror fall at Leicester in June left her with two broken ribs, a crushed vertebra and a lacerated liver.

But, like her boss, Gibson takes everything as it comes.

And, having been in front in the ladies’ championship for much of the year, she’d love to overhaul Serena Brotherton, who currently leads by one, and take the title.

“It happens, that’s the way it goes,” she said reflecting on the accident, which happened when Nomoreblondes stumbled and fell shortly after the starting stalls opened.

“I am still in one piece and still here. All the time I did have off I was in the lead in the championship, right up until about a fortnight ago.

“It would be fantastic to win it because I have never really been anywhere close to winning it before.”

Midgley added: “The worst part about it is when she got injured Highland Warrior went and won an amateur race as did Wiseman’s Diamond. There’s two winners there and instead of being one behind you are one in front.”

So with the winning totals increasing, and the prize money rising every year – the York trophies also in the cabinet – Midgley’s profile grows ever higher.

But his ambitions are very familiar.

“They are the same as anybody,” he maintained. “You want to get better horses and go to nicer places more often. Earn more money. That’s basically the bottom line, with whatever you do.”

* Don’t miss Turf Talk next week when Steve Carroll speaks to Midgley’s promising apprentice jockey, Paul Pickard