As is known pretty well everywhere in racing by now, the human star of the elite British Champions Day meeting at Ascot last Saturday was not Frankie Dettori or Ryan Moore, or John Gosden or Aidan O’Brien, or any of the other usual suspects, but a 24-year-old female jockey who hadn’t ridden even one Group winner until three months ago.
Then, in the space of an hour and a quarter on Saturday, she rode a G2 winner, a G1 winner and was runner-up in another G1.
This article is not just about Hollie Doyle, however, astonishing though her rise has been through what serves as the 2020 flat season. We are looking as well at two other women riders also taking the sport by storm in two different jurisdictions: another 24-year-old in Jamie Kah in Australia, and the remarkable Canadian Emma-Jayne Wilson, who is enjoying a purple patch at a slightly more mature age (she’s 39).
But let’s go back to Doyle. Her progress this season has been nothing short of electric - a first Royal Ascot winner, then that landmark first Group win on Dame Malliot in a G2 at the Newmarket July meeting, then scorching past her own British record for winners in a season (it had been 116 - set last year) weeks ahead of schedule even in a truncated season. Her total for 2020 was 122 after racing yesterday, and she currently lies fourth in the British championship.
Until Dame Malliot’s July victory, Doyle hadn’t figured anywhere in the TRC Global Rankings (only Group and Graded results count, remember). She scraped into the top 500 after that, but three more Group winners (all G3) in the following weeks took her into the top 200. Then came Saturday.
She drove home 11/1 shot Trueshan for trainer Alan King in the first, the two-mile G2 Long Distance Cup (see video below), then surpassed that when 16/1 chance Glen Shiel prevailed by a nose for trainer Archie Watson in the British Champion Sprint over six furlongs. It was a first G1 triumph not just for Doyle but also for Watson. The rider wasn’t finished there, though, partnering the aforementioned Dame Malliot to finish second in the next race, the G1 British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes.
Let’s pause here to acknowledge that Doyle wasn’t the only human star on Champions Day. Okay, she rode the first two of the six winners on the card - but Tom Marquand, who happens to be her partner, rode the last two, including the Champion Stakes on Addeyyb. It’s a pretty sensational season for Marquand too, by the way - four G1 victories and he’s one place ahead of his girlfriend in the jockeys’ championship. But that’s not the point of this story.
While Marquand’s efforts last week lifted him four places to #54 in the TRC Global Rankings after a five-point gain, Doyle was the week’s highest human climber in any category anywhere, rising no less than 51 places to world #102, making her the second-highest-ranked female rider on the planet.
Ahead of her, though, is Jamie Kah (left), a former South Australian champion who moved to Victoria at the start of 2019 and currently leads the state’s premiership race. Kah has been getting more and more opportunities in the best races on the Melbourne circuit of late and was on another G3 winner at Caulfield last week. Her results at the track’s big day on Saturday included a runner-up finish in a G2 and a fourth on the popular British stayer Prince Of Arran in the G1 Caulfield Cup. Trainer Charlie Fellowes has confirmed that Kah will be aboard Prince Of Arran, one of the favourites, in the Melbourne Cup on November 3.
That all means a five-point rise for Kah this week, taking her to world #77 (up from 89), which is the highest position any female rider has reached since the retirement (at the age of 26) of America’s Rosie Napravnik at the end of 2014. Napravnik, of course, was enjoying a standout career when she decided to call it a day - her peak world ranking was #12 in 2014.
Sadly, though, the U.S. has become something of backwater when it comes to rides for female jockeys in Graded stakes. The highest woman in the rankings in North America at the moment is Emma-Jayne Wilson, who plies her trade at Woodbine in Toronto.
Wilson has been winning big races in Canada for nearly 20 years, has more than 1,500 victories to her name and became the first women to ride the winner of Canada’s most famous race, the Queen’s Plate, the first leg of the Canadian Triple Crown, in 2007. She is currently enjoying something of a surge in our rankings. Hollie Doyle wasn’t the only female jockey to ride a G1 winner at the weekend - Wilson was at it too, partnering Say The Word to victory in the Northern Dancer Turf Stakes at Woodbine on Sunday. That was her second G1 score in less than a month and she is now the world’s fifth-ranked woman rider - at #233.
This Saturday, though, she’s in the running for an even more important prize when she rides 12/1 chance English Conqueror in the Breeders’ Stakes at Woodbine, the final leg of the OLG-sponsored Triple Crown. They will be up against it, though. Hot favourite is Mighty Heart, who has already won the first two legs.
Current world top ten female jockeys
Third-ranked Linda Meech, who hit the top spot at one point last year, has not ridden since April. She is pregnant and does not intend to return to action until 2021.
At-a-glance comparison
Jamie Kah
296 weeks in the rankings
130 weeks in top 250
Highest position: 77 (current)
Hollie Doyle
15 weeks in the rankings
10 weeks in the top 250
Highest position: 102 (current)
Emma-Jayne Wilson
190 weeks in the rankings
18 weeks in the top 250
Highest position: 201 (January 5, 2014)
Rosie Napravnik
200 weeks in the rankings
192 weeks in the top 250
Highest position: 12 (August 17, 2014)