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“I’m obsessed with winning,” Hollie Doyle says calmly in response to a suggestion that she seems consumed by racing, “but I do love horses as well. So that helps, doesn’t it?”
The most successful female jockey in British racing history had begun our interview with an impressively crunching handshake. Doyle’s cheerfully powerful greeting confirmed that her small but muscled frame ripples with the strength of a supreme jockey absorbed in the singular world of racing. But her daily grind is elevated by more than a thousand victories in the saddle.
Doyle offers a grimace of a smile when I ask if she is anything like AP McCoy, the great jump jockey, who said that the elation of a winner usually lasted less than a minute before he felt compelled to look ahead to his next fix of a victory. “Yes, unfortunately I am like that,” Doyle says in the shade of an oak tree before a sunlit evening of racing at Sandown. “I wish I wasn’t, because it’s a shame. Nothing lasts for ever and I’m sure when I’m 50 or 60 I’ll look back on what I’ve done and think: ‘I should have enjoyed that a bit more.’ But I’m just so driven by winning that, when I cross the line in front I think: ‘Job done, what’s next?’”
The 28-year-old rode her 1,000th winner in Britain on Handle With Care at Lingfield in March. She became only the second woman jockey, after Hayley Turner, to reach that milestone. Seven weeks later Doyle broke Turner’s record when romping past the winning post first on Brindavan at Ascot. Winner number 1,023 established her place at the summit for female jockeys but, as Doyle says, that title is largely meaningless compared to the championship she wants most.
Did her 1,000th winner feel the more significant landmark? “Yes, I think so. I wanted to get to 1,000 because for any jockey it’s a good milestone. It was nice to break Hayley’s record but it wasn’t something where I’d said: ‘I want to take her record.’ I don’t see myself as a top female jockey. I just see myself as a jockey.”
As Doyle prepares to ride at Royal Ascot from Tuesday, she adds: “I just want to be the best jockey. I don’t compare myself to other females and I never did when I was growing up. Obviously I was aware of Hayley but I looked up to AP McCoy, Ryan Moore and Kieren Fallon.”
Her greatest racing desire is to eventually become champion jockey. “You must have a burning ambition,” Doyle suggests, “and that’s mine. I will do everything possible to be the best rider I can to put me in a position that, if I ever get the opportunity, I’ll do it.”
In 2022 she and her husband, Tom Marquand, finished tied-second in the jockeys’ championship. They both recorded 91 winners but were distant runners-up to William Buick – the champion with 66 more wins. “It sounds great being second,” Doyle says, “but we were quite far behind and the competition is only going to get tougher. As long as William and Oisin [Murphy] are riding, it’s going to be hard for anyone to beat them.”
Murphy won the title last year and, two months into this season, he is streaking ahead on 43 winners, with Buick on 28. Doyle is currently on 15 and she concedes that another tilt at the championship is unlikely this year. “I’m trying, but I haven’t got a lot up my sleeve. There’s not really much I can do right now. You’ve got your connections and one year they might not have a good season. The next year they might have an amazing one and you might fly. It’s not completely out of your hands but you definitely need that big yard behind you.
“I’m really lucky I’m attached to [trainer] Archie Watson who has got 100 horses. But Oisin Murphy’s attached to Andrew Balding, William Buick to Charlie Appleby. They have got 300 horses each so it makes a difference. Obviously they’re very good jockeys as well. I’m working hard in the mornings and I physically can’t do any more. I’m just trying to concentrate on riding winners.”
Will Doyle, or any other future female jockey, ever become the stable jockey for a dominant yard? “I wouldn’t say no if the opportunity came about but I don’t know if it would. Probably not. The people that have those jobs now hang around. You can only keep dreaming but I’m happy with what I’ve got.”
Doyle has had memorable Group One wins, the first of which was on Watson’s Glen Shiel on Champions Day in 2020. She also finished third in the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year but it was far sweeter that, the following year, she won the Goodwood Cup on Trueshan and best of all, in 2022, the Prix de Diane [the French Oaks] on Nashwa.
Doyle craves winning a British Classic but an indication of the odds against her is that she has to yet to ride in the Derby – the race she would most love to win. “Obviously as a jockey you want to win the Derby and the Arc and you want to be champion. They’re the three main targets.”
If she could only achieve one of these, Doyle would choose becoming champion jockey. But I wonder if, with none of her connections having produced a Derby ride for her so far, she avoids watching the race? “Oh no, I love watching it. It sends tingles down my spine watching someone win the Derby or the Arc. It’s a dream, isn’t it? You can only relate to how they must feel when they’ve won.”
There is no bitterness because Doyle feels huge gratitude to Watson, the trainer who has done so much for her. Watson stood up for Doyle when some of his owners didn’t want “this little girl” riding for them.
“He wouldn’t directly tell me, but I knew,” Doyle reveals. “I’m not stupid. I can tell when I’m not wanted. I thought: ‘Whatever. I’ll prove you wrong.’ I suspect I’ve changed a few mindsets since then.”
Doyle was never affected by such antiquated attitudes in the weighing room. “I’ve always got on with everyone, really,” she says with a little smile, “and I’ve always stood up for myself from a young age. You have to stand your ground but hold your hands up when you’re wrong. It’s just the weighing room culture.”
Despite Doyle’s outstanding success it’s still difficult for female jockeys in British racing. “It’s hard for anyone trying to make it in racing and that’s the same in any sport or any walk of life. I think that because there aren’t as many females riding at a higher level it’s focused on more. But, realistically, if you’re not good enough, you won’t make it. I know in some other disciplines people get promoted because they need to meet the criteria. People say we need a female to do this to make it look like that. In racing it’s decided on pure ability.”
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As a schoolgirl Doyle was certain that there was nothing else in life she wanted more than to become a professional jockey. She laughs when I ask her if she was ever offered career guidance by a well-meaning teacher. “Not really. It was a bit of a lost cause. I was kind of stubborn. There was no other option for me. I wanted to be a jockey.”
Yet she was tested when she broke into racing at 16. “I was pretty hard on myself,” she remembers. “I was brought up with tough love rather than being told I was the best in the world. Both of my parents just wanted me to get on with it rather than telling me: ‘You’re the best thing since sliced bread, you’re amazing.’ Even when I was doing all right, there was none of that. You don’t need all that carry on.”
Doyle explains that, “I always knew I could do it, but there was one time where I thought: ‘Maybe I’m no good?’ I got it in my head a bit too much at one point.”
How did she change? “I started doing weights and going to the gym. It really helped because I realised I am strong and I can do this. And then I just portrayed it on the horse. I wouldn’t change anything now even if, looking back, I had some really tough times. It was probably hardest when I was at Dave Evans’s yard. I was just very young and immature but it’s worked out and I try not to look back too much.”
Did she allow herself to linger over her three winners at Royal Ascot in 2023? “With the first one I thought: ‘Great, I’ve got one on the board.’ But the other two came and it was just: ‘This is my job.’ Obviously it was great as I had my family there but I got back in the evening, had some tea and went to bed, woke up, rode out, went racing. Every day is the same, seven days a week, so there’s no time to celebrate.”
Doyle even feels guilty on her rare days away from racing. “I do. Days off don’t come around very often. I long for one sometimes and I get one and I’m completely lost. What am I going to do? I’m not normal, but I’m just not used to being out of my routine. My last day off was more than a month ago, for Tom’s granny’s funeral. I couldn’t tell you when the next one is.”
She pins her remorseless work ethic to “the fear of missing out. I don’t want to miss a winner. I’ve worked so hard to get on the horses, I’m not going to turn any down. If you do, someone else will come in and you’re not going to ride it again. It’s very cut-throat, racing.”
How does she switch off away from the track? “I like tootling around, doing my own thing at home. I’m a bit of a lone warrior. I’m not very sociable.”
While Doyle is at Sandown, her husband is “at Yarmouth today. Some weeks we’re never at the same meeting. It doesn’t really make a difference because when we’re at work, we’re at work. It’s not like we’re spending time together.”
Doyle stresses how happy she and Marquand are and that “we moved house recently and bought a nice place with a big garden, a bit of room. It gives me a few more jobs. We’re a good team but we like doing things ourselves.”
She adds that “we really want kids one day. Obviously it’s not on the radar at the moment, but I’m not getting any younger. I’d like to think I’ve got quite a few more years left in me. Anyway, I honestly don’t know if, after having a kid I’d say: ‘That’s me done.’”
Does Doyle fear the end of her racing career? “Yes,” she says, before breaking into another smile. “Obviously I couldn’t tell you what I would do if I wasn’t working. I’d have to have something lined up straight away to jump into, because I’m not very good at not doing a lot.”
