With Royal Ascot success and multiple Group-race winners, 24 year old Hollie Doyle has established herself as one of the finest jockeys of her generation, and she crowned a great season as she enjoyed a cracking feature double and a first Gr1 success at Ascot on Saturday.
Doyle enjoyed a first ever ride in a British G1 contest aboard Glen Shiel in the Betfair Sprint Cup at Haydock, and it was the very same son of Pivotal who carried her to a memorable first Gr1 success in the G1 QIPCO British Champions Sprint on Saturday.
“It is absolutely crazy to be having five rides on QIPCO British Champions Day. I can’t believe it. Having one ride would have been brilliant, but to have five is what dreams are made of!”she said earlier, oblivious of what would unfold.
At Kempton on Wednesday, October 14 Doyle set another milestone in what has already been a remarkable season as she once again broke her own British record for the most winners in a calendar year by a female jockey.
The landmark success, her 117th of the season at that point, came aboard the Ralph Beckett-trained State Occasion, who benefitted from a fine Doyle ride to score by a short-head.
Doyle ended last season with 116 winners – breaking Josephine Gordon’s record of 106 – but with over two and a half months of the year left, she will certainly not be resting on her laurels.
Amongst her other highlights this season, she enjoyed a first Royal Ascot victory aboard Scarlet Dragon in the Duke Of Edinburgh Handicap and a first Group winner when partnering Dame Malliot to victory in the G2 Princess of Wales’s Tattersalls Stakes at Newmarket.
Doyle also memorably enjoyed a 899/1 five-timer at Windsor on August 29, becoming the first woman to land five winners at a single meeting.
She said that Royal Ascot was ‘a pretty good day’ for her.
“To win aboard Scarlet Dragon. I was pretty gobsmacked as he was an outsider so that was a dream come true. To be champion jockey would be an absolute dream, but we will see how it goes. For me, I could not have done any more than I have this year. I am in fourth in the table at the minute and I can’t really do any more than I am doing. I think people sometimes think jockeys sit back and think ‘I might try and be champion this year’, but realistically most of us are trying as hard as we can all year round. If I land in that position it will be amazing, but for the moment I will just carry on trying to ride winners.”
She is also quoted as saying prior to Saturday that winning a G1 was ‘the next target’.
“But I am no fool and I know how hard it is to come across G1 horses. Hopefully in the next few years, it may happen.”
How she will remember Saturday 17 October 2020!
