Star three-year-old’s rider speaks to Steve Dennis ahead of Saturday’s QIPCO Champion Stakes at Ascot – and then comes the Breeders’ Cup
It’s that time of year; it isn’t just birds who fly south for the winter.
Here and there, other small, bright-eyed creatures with gaudy plumage are preparing to exchange the thin, watery autumn sun in Britain for the three-bar version freely available all around the world.
Tom Marquand switches one set of vivid livery for another, gazes out of the window at dusk falling softly over a chilly Kempton Park, thinks about migratory trails.
“California,” he says, and it’s as though he can feel the temperature rise. “Japan. Bahrain. Hong Kong. Australia. Saudi Arabia. Dubai.”
This man of the racing world doesn’t actually pat himself down to make sure he has his passport, but it’s on his mind. “I really enjoy the travelling,” he adds, almost superfluously. “I love riding abroad.”
Marquand, 26, has made a habit of winning major races in every jurisdiction, the world his oyster, his carry-on bag full of pearls, and the next odyssey will surely bring more of the same. Before he takes wing, though, there’s one last job to do at home.
On Saturday at Ascot, British Champions Day brings down the curtain on the core Flat season in the UK, a G1-heavy conclusion to the campaign, and Marquand rides hot favourite Economics in the QIPCO Champion Stakes, the £1.3m centrepiece.
The three-year-old son of Night Of Thunder is four-for-four this year – maiden, G2, G2, and then graduation to the big league with a tenacious defeat of no less a celebrity than Auguste Rodin in last month’s Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.
His relentless ascent has given Marquand the sort of problem no jockey minds having. “I feel bad saying it,” he says, the big grin on his face belying the pain. “I’ve ridden so many good horses who have been important to me but I have to say Economics is the best I’ve ridden, he’s so exciting.
“The most impressive thing about Leopardstown was that I’ve never had a horse fight so hard for the win. Obviously he has th
e class as well, but to have that will to win at such an early stage of his career is incredible.
Proper scrap
“That was the first time he’s had to battle, and to do it against a horse like Auguste Rodin is no mean feat – look at that horse’s record, he either wins or he finishes some way back, so Economics is the first horse to beat him in a proper scrap.
“And after just five runs in his life he still has that potential to do better, and to win an Irish Champion and still be able to say that is pretty rare. This sort of thing is ultimately why we do all this.”
After Economics had made his stakes breakthrough in the G2 Dante Stakes at York in May, a defining prep for the Derby, the inexperienced colt was directed away from Epsom by trainer William Haggas in favour of a more gradual approach to his campaign. Patience is always a virtue with horses.
“The decision to miss the Derby was pivotal to his development,” says Marquand. “Having gaps between each run has given him the chance to fill out physically and grow up mentally. He’s had the perfect experience all the way. William always says that patience is usually rewarded.”
‘Aussie Tom’
One of the aforementioned good horses important to Marquand was Addeybb, also trained by Haggas, on whom he won the Champion Stakes in 2020 in between annexing three G1s in Australia at the chief expense of future Melbourne Cup winner Verry Elleegant. Those victories brought Marquand his first wave of international recognition and the flattering nickname ‘Aussie Tom’ from the generally hard-to-impress local jockey colony.
So if Economics marks the end of one chapter, the denouement of another fine season that concludes with Marquand on the bronze-medal step of the jockeys’ championship, the Breeders’ Cup heralds the start of the next episode.
Last year Marquand wrote his name on the Breeders’ Cup roll of honour for the first time with victory aboard Big Evs in the Juvenile Turf Sprint, a milestone moment. “Of course I grew up watching the Breeders’ Cup, and I was lucky to get my first winner at Santa Anita, which is a stunning track,” he says. “I knew he had a live chance, but obviously the local horses with American speed were a worry.
“But Big Evs is fast and hard and [trainer] Mick [Appleby] and the team did a fantastic job. It was just a huge thrill. I spend a lot of the year chasing around the world to try to ride big winners and to get one at the Breeders’ Cup is on a par with anything. It was a nice one to tick off.”
Big Evs returns to California next month to bid for the double in the Turf Sprint, while Marquand can also call upon his barnmate Big Mojo – in the same ownership – for another assault on the Juvenile Turf Sprint and four-time G1-winning filly Porta Fortuna in the Mile.
“Porta Fortuna is an absolute rocket,” says Marquand, with almost the same reverence as he expressed for Economics. “S
he ran such a big race last year [runner-up Juvenile Fillies Turf] so she has that experience of tight turns, she’s got the speed, she loves fast ground, it’s all there for her with everything in her favour.”
Round-the-world voyage
America is the first port of call on Marquand’s round-the-world voyage and it was also his first experience of life away from home.
Go west, young man, is the old-timer’s cry, and before Marquand had ever ridden a winner he was unwittingly shaping the mindset that is now distinguishing his career.
“I went out there at 15, stayed with [trainer] Tom Morley, spent two or three weeks at Belmont Park and then went up to Saratoga,” he says.
“Tom and his wife Maggie were fantastic, they looked after me as though I was their own child. I rode trackwork, learned a lot, had a great time, met a lot of interesting people, it was a very good experience.
“When you’re a jockey you might leave home young, leave school young, get involved in British racing and that’s all you know. A trip like that helps you learn there’s a lot more going on outside England.
“Trainers have a longer time to appreciate this – they can do a couple of years as assistant here, three years there – but jockeys have to do it more quickly, when they’re much younger. I’ve been so lucky to meet the right people, have the right people around me.
“As an example, I jumped on a couple of horses for Christophe Clement back when I was 15, and then earlier this month I rode [Survie] in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe for his brother Nicolas. It’s all about the people you meet, and that first visit to the US was more important to my career than I thought at the time.”
Glittering future
It has been an impressive career so far – champion apprentice, more than 1,000 winners on the home front, a catalogue of G1 glory in Britain and abroad, an enviable position as first jockey in a big Newmarket yard, all set fair for a glittering future as he begins to reach his prime.
Marquand also shines off-track, his easy manner making him popular with the press pack, his proactive, go-ahead nature ideal for spreading the appeal of racing to a wider, newer audience.
He reckons he’s not particularly political, but there are certain elements in racing he feels strongly about and doesn’t make the mistake of thinking that if he doesn’t mention them, someone else will.
Notably, he spins his argument around the benefits to others rather than purely himself.
“I’d like to see saunas back at racecourses, as a lot of guys find things very hard without them,” he says. “The people who made the decision to remove them after the Covid pandemic aren’t people in our position.
“It’s not just a weight issue. They solve problems within the weighing room as well – the sauna was a meeting place where people could talk, a social thing, you’d get senior jockeys talking to the youngsters, a space for counselling and advice. We’re consulting about it and hopefully they’ll come back.”
Golden couple
Marquand is also an advocate for jockeys being able to ride at two meetings a day, another feature that vanished during the pandemic. Again, his point of reference is not himself but this time his wife Hollie Doyle, whose success in the saddle runs parallel with his own, this golden couple of the weighing room.
“Hollie was in Newmarket on a big Group 1 afternoon but couldn’t ride because she had to go to Chelmsford [an hour away] in the evening to ride for Archie Watson, because that’s her job.
“There were five horses running at Newmarket that she had worked hard to get on, ridden them out, galloped them, we do a lot of work to get these rides, but she had to sit and watch other jockeys ride them.
“It would be great to have the option. No-one would be forced to do it, but why should you be stopped from doing it if you want to?”
Previously, the facility to ride at more than one meeting a day was a major asset for jockeys chasing the championship, a crown that both Marquand and Doyle have come close to wearing in recent years.
Marquand is slightly equivocal about the prospect of being champion, saying that it’s not something he’s particularly stressed about, then admitting that he’d break himself in half to win the title if he found himself in close contention. “Hopefully one day,” is the final verdict, which seems likely.
That attritional fight for the championship has left its mark on many who would be king, but when Marquand is asked whether – like, say, Frankie Dettori and Christophe Lemaire, to name but two – he might go expat on a permanent basis to escape the daily treadmill of travelling that so saps the spirit of many British jockeys, he demurs.
“Of course you never know, and I’d never say no, but there’s two of us to think about and that changes the dynamic,” he says.
“We’re young, and we’re working very hard for what we want, and not being home much doesn’t bother us because our dreams and ambitions are bigger than the desire to chill out at home.
“Priorities can change, though, and maybe that’s when we’d think about other options. We love riding in Japan, because we do it together. It’s probably the only time in the year we see each other for more than a couple of days a week, we’re always made very welcome out there and the racing is phenomenal.”
Now he’s back where he came in, pondering his itinerary, one foot in the departure lounge. “It’s non-stop but it’s great,” he says. “There’s a whole world of opportunity out there.”
Economics first, business first, and then the pleasure of the open road, the unbroken skyline of the far horizon. He’ll return in the spring, following the sun, like all those other high-fliers who know the best of both worlds.
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