The William Hill Keep Your Raceday Positive Fillies’ Nursery Handicap, run over six furlongs at Goodwood on September 3, 2024, was won by Leyhaimur, owned by Abdullah Saeed Al Naboodah and trained by David Simcock. The Pinatubo filly was pushed along to lead inside the final furlong and soon went clear for a ready, 2½-length victory. The race itself was not particularly dramatic, but was nonetheless described in commentary as creating “a slice of history” insofar as Leyhaimur brought up 1,000 winners for jockey Hollie Doyle.
Reflecting on the time she had taken to achieve her landmark success, Doyle said, “I was riding for six or so years before I got going, so it feels an age for me, but statistically it has all happened in a short period of time. It feels like two minutes ago since I had my first ride.”
Doyle rode her first winner, The Mongoose, trained by David Evans, in a lady amateur riders’ handicap at Salisbury on May 5, 2013, while still at school. However, since joining Richard Hannon, riding out her claim and becoming a fully-fledged professional jockey, she has never been far from the headlines. In 2019, she rode 116 winners, thereby setting a new record for winners in a calendar year by a British female jockey, and increased her seasonal tally to 150 in 2020 and 172 in 2021.
Nowadays, Doyle, 28, is stable jockey to Archie Watson in Upper Lambourn, Berkshire and, having ridden over 100 winners in each of the last six completed seasons, currently lies nineteenth in the 2025 Flat Jockeys’ Championship, having ridden 24 winners in the qualifying period, which began on May 3, but 61 in the calendar year as a whole. Of her latest achievement, she said, “”When I started my career, never did I imagine I’d ride this many winners. I’m really grateful for all the support I’ve had from trainers, owners and my agent[Guy Jewell], who has done a great job for me so far.”