Holly Doyle, 26, rode her first winner, as a amateur, on May 5, 2013 and, in the intervening decade or so, has made a habit of reaching landmarks, breaking records and making headlines. In 2019 – the year in which she succeeded another youngster, Edward Greatrex, as stable jockey to Archie Watson – Doyle rode 116 winners, thereby breaking the previous record for winners in a calendar year by a female rider, 106, set by Josephine Gordon two years previously.
In 2020, she broke her own record with 150 winners, including the first of her now-seven Group 1 winners, Glen Shield, trained by Watson, in the British Sprint Stakes at Ascot in October. In 2021, Doyle broke her owne record again with 172 winners in the calendar year and, although 2022 as a whole yielded just 151 winners, she finished joint second in the Flat Jockeys’ Championship, alongside husband Tom Marquand, with 91 winners in the qualifying period.
Speaking to the ‘Racing Post’ in June, 2023, following a remarkable Royal Ascot, at which he saddled three winners, all ridden by Doyle, Watson said, ‘I think Hollie is as good as anyone out there, but in the early days it was hard. Some old-fashioned owners still had the mindset of [wondering] why they should want this little girl to ride for them.’
More recently, on June 28, 2023, Doyle notched up a winner at each of the 36 active Flat racecourses in Britain, courtesy of the rejuvenated seven-year-old Mostawaa, trained by Heather Main, in the most celebrated Flat race run in Cumbria, the Carlisle Bell. That victory left her just one short of 800 career victories, which she duly reached on the three-year-old filly Honeymooner, trained by William Muir and Chris Grassick, at Windsor four days later.