Laura Pearson is an apprentice jockey attached to the Kremlin House Stables of up-and-coming trainer Tom Clover in Newmarket. At the time of writing, Pearson has ridden 71 winners for a variety of trainers, including Clover, David Loughnane, Richard Fahey and Ralph Beckett, thereby reducing her claim from 5lb to 3lb. Indeed, in February, 2022, having consulted Clover and her agent, Steven Croft, Pearson took an unprecedented two-month break from race riding to preserve her 5lb claim for more lucrative opportunities later in the year.
Having spent much of her childhood in France, Pearson returned to England and started riding out for Purebred Arabian trainer Philip Collington in Newmarket as a 13-year-old schoolgirl. She subsequently joined another Newmarket trainer, John Ryan, and it was for Ryan that she rode her first winner, Plucky Dip, at Catterick in October, 2018. Pearson rode just one winner in her debut season, four winners in 2019 and 12 winners in 2020, although a six-month stint wih Monmouthshire trainer David Evans was cut short by the serious illness and death of her father, Craig.
In search of ‘a good agent to help me get things back on track’, Pearson attracted the attention of agent Steven Croft with a winning ride on Herringswell at Catterick in November, 2020, and he signed her up the following day. Consequently, her number of rides increased and, in 2021, she rode 42 winners, including Lola Showgirl in the Kensington Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot. In so doing, she became just the fourth female jockey, after Hollie Doyle, Hayley Turner and Gay Kelleway, to ride a winner at the Royal meeting. Pearson has also been mentored, to some extent, by Hollie Doyle who, like her, worked for David Evans in the early part of her career.