i thought the jockey AI was supposed to be better now i have waited to play 50 seasons to see but i see no sign of that whatsoever still running into cul de sacs when they could easily go round.or is it just me being picky there should be a feature where u can bollock em rather than me shouting at the screen then sacking him! also u dont seem to be able to retain any of the top jocks which is annoying id like em all freelance at beginning of season so you can pick.

I disagree, I think the jockey AI has improved enormously.

The thing that annoys me most about the jockeys is when they decide to go against what the horse wants even if they have ridden the horse 100 times!

I would love to be able to manually set each horse individually for the style of ride I want it to receive no matter which jockey got on board etc.

There is another post about this on here too. I think overall it is better. But whether intentional or not as Blazing Bailey said you do still get jockeys randomly doing something completely the opposite of the horses' normal riding instructions, which can be very annoying.

I feel the AI is very good compared to SO4.

I use Dettori or De Sousa (retained) pretty much every race and I rarely see them get boxed in or make bad moves. Some of the maneuvering from Dettori in some of my races where he has weaved in and out between horses has been nothing sort of sensational. He has been the top Jockey for the last 5 straight seasons in my game.

Not sure whether the Jockey makes a huge difference during a race (although it definately appears too for me) but do you use cheap jockeys?

I definitely find that horses seem to go through tiny gaps with a lot more ease in SO5 but I personally like how some horses get trapped on the rail. This happens a lot in real life and I think it's good that a high risk strategy can pay off and save a few lengths or cost you the race.

I retained N Nordblad from day 1, She is down to a 3lb claim and has improved a lot, tends to like to hold them up too much but not an issue, i did have 1 issue with her though- ran a horse in 5f and she told me too try a furlong shorter next time!
What i would like to see is 'Jockey Confidence' and being able to talk to jockey for either praise/rollockings, wins and praise would increase confidence and make them perform better, long losing runs and rollockings would lower confidence.