Hollie Doyle had just flashed across the latest threshold of her upwardly mobile career when she was made aware of special plans for a commemoration.
Doyle, on Tuesday, became the second European-based female after her great friend Hayley Turner to partner 1000 winners, the landmark coming up after she had ridden a double at Goodwood: Leyhaimur, trained by David Simcock, was the horse who took her into four figures.
It was a significant moment and it wasn’t lost on the officials at Kempton Park, where Doyle was booked to ride the following day. They wondered whether it would be fitting to make a presentation to her before the meeting started. The response they received spoke volumes.
‘It was really nice to see everyone was so happy for me, all the stuff people had done with videos and pictures,’ says Doyle, taking up the story. ‘They wanted to do something for me at Kempton, but I was like: ‘that was yesterday’s news.’
‘I had some pasta in a pot that I picked up the races and then I went to bed. I was asleep by half-nine, I had work the next morning!
Hollie Doyle, on Tuesday, became the second European-based female to partner 1000 winners
Doyle reached the magic four figure number after she had ridden a double at Goodwood on Leyhaimur
Doyle is almost contrite for the fact she is so matter-of-fact about it all but she has nothing to apologise for
‘Of course I appreciate how far I’ve come but I’ve always got me eye on something else, bigger and better things. Maybe I’m just a dreamer – but maybe it’s just life? Don’t you need that attitude in any profession?’
We talk outside the weighing room at Haydock Park and Doyle is almost contrite for the fact she is so matter-of-fact about it all but she has nothing to apologise for; it’s fascinating to hear, the insight that enables you to understand the workings of a top professional’s mind.
What Doyle, 27, is doing now is living out the reality of the dream she had as a little girl galloping Jerry, the Thelwell pony her grandad bought her when she was eight. Her father, Mark, was a former jockey so it was inevitable that she was going to end up in racing.
There are, though, different levels of success within racing, as in any sport, and Doyle’s ferocious ambition to remain at the pinnacle is unrelenting. She’s ridden 104 winners so far in 2024, the sixth consecutive year she has had a century, but doubt stalks her a rival on her withers.
‘I have been preparing for this for a long time,’ says Doyle. ‘I was waiting for chances and thankfully they came. It’s worked out well. But I’m just so obsessed with riding winners and improving. It’s a great mind-set for now but one day it might bite me on the backside. I don’t have an off button.
‘When I have a quiet time, I know what it is like to not do well. I had six years of not doing well and I don’t want to go back to that. It’s an obsession to keep moving forward. Isn’t that the way all athletes are?
‘It’s hard to enjoy the moment, if you know what I mean? You are wondering what’s next. It’s like “okay, I’ve won The Oaks but it’s not The Derby”. Is it a really bad way of thinking?’
No, it isn’t. It’s put to her that a common feeling amongst footballers when their team has won a trophy is emptiness the following morning – the anxiety that rush of euphoria will never flood through them again.
‘I’m lucky in that I ride every days,’ she says. ‘But the Group Ones, the big days, I know exactly what they mean. You win a Group One and you don’t know when, or if, you’ll get another. You’re moving on every half-an-hour, there’s never that period of time to reflect. It’s mental, really.
Doyle will be chasing another top level success at Haydock on Saturday afternoon
‘I’ve been riding plenty of winners but if they are not the ones everyone is watching, you don’t get the chances on the big days. People look at stats and if you are not in the top 10, you can be easily forgotten. I’ve seen people come and go. I’m really terrified of that. It’s the fear of failure.
Fear, however, is no bad thing. Without it, would her 1000 wins been decorated so liberally with nine Group One triumphs? The first came at Ascot on Glen Shiel in October 2020, the most recent came at York last month on Bradsell, who carried her faster than she has ever been in a saddle.
She will be chasing another top level success at Haydock on Saturday afternoon, when Vadream – a lively outsider – contests the Betfair Sprint Cup, but whether it comes or not, she cannot let the week pass without a reference to Turner, her great friend who has been a trailblazer for female jockeys.
‘There aren’t many girls in the weighing room but those who are good enough get chances,’ says Doyle. ‘Thanks to Hayley, she made it easier for me. I really do appreciate what she did, totally. But all I can think about is riding winners. I don’t have anything else on my mind.’
