She is the female jockey that continues to break down walls for women in the sport of horse racing, and Hollie Doyle is not finished yet. With the Glorious Goodwood meeting just around the corner, Doyle will be looking to continue her rise to the top in some of the best races on the calendar.
Hollie Doyle credit flicker Nakashi
The Record Breaker
Despite coming from humble beginnings, Hollie Doyle has wasted little time in making it to the top table of the jockey world. With a Goodwood Cup win already to her name, she is popular in the racing betting markets to win again in 2023, with horses like, Courage Mon Ami (5/2), and Coltrane (3/1) among the horses set to line up. Elsewhere in the Goodwood odds, Doyle is due to ride recent Royal Ascot winner Saint Lawrence who is currently the 10/1 favourite for the Steward's Cup.
Other notable wins that the 26-year-old has achieved in her young career to date include the Princess Of Wales's Stakes and Nassau Stakes. In 2022 she became the first lady rider to win a European Classic when she won the French Oaks.
In 2021, Doyle set the record for most wins in a season by a female jockey with 172 victories and is the only woman to win five consecutive races on the same card. Finishing third in the BBC's Sports Personality of The Year in 2020 was another huge achievement for the diminutive jockey.
A Marriage Made On The Track
In a story that would not be out of place in a Dick Francis novel, in March of 2022, Hollie Doyle married fellow jockey Tom Marquand. The pair now live together in an idyllic village in Herefordshire, England.
Other Lady Riders That Took The Racing World By Storm
Hayley Turner
The original female flat racing jockey that paved the early road for the likes of Hollie Doyle to follow, Hayley Turner mixed it with the men for many years. She was the first lady to ride over 100 winners in a season and ended her career with eight Group race wins, two of which came at the highest level.
Rachael Blackmore
If Hollie Doyle is the female star of the flat racing world, then the same can be said of Rachael Blackmore when it comes to jump racing. The Irish woman was another to come from humble beginnings but has enjoyed a hugely successful career.
Blackmore has consistently beaten the boys to land the biggest races in the jumping sphere, and she holds the record of being the only lady rider to win both the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Grand National. Other highlights of her career include becoming the first woman to win the Champion Hurdle and the first to be named leading jockey at the Cheltenham Festival.
The Future
The Glorious Goodwood meeting will be just the next step in the record-breaking career of Hollie Doyle. The ultimate aim would be to become Champion Jockey, but whatever happens in the future, Doyle has not only broken through the glass ceiling for lady riders - she has smashed it to pieces.