Doyle eclipses Turner while O’Brien dominates trials
Hollie Doyle’s riding career passed another significant milestone when victory aboard Brindavan in the Carey Group Handicap at Ascot gave her sole ownership of the record for winners in Britain by a female jockey with 1,023, one more than the career total of Hayley Turner, who announced her retirement in April.
Doyle, who got Sean Woods’s gelding home by a length at 8-1, rode her first winner in 2013 and reached 100 winners in a calendar year for the first time in 2019. Her first Group One success was aboard Glen Shiel in the Champion Sprint at Ascot in October 2020 and she finished third in the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year awards later the same year.
“It’s good and like I’ve said in the past, I’ve got to kind of pinch myself to believe that I’ve done this well, so long may it continue,” Doyle, who is 28, told Sky Sports Racing after Saturday’s success. “We [Doyle and her husband, her fellow leading jockey Tom Marquand] have both come a long way and some days we do sit back and really appreciate what’s happened, but we’re also always looking forward to what we can do next or what’s around the corner. But it’s a great milestone to have reached and I’ll keep kicking.”
Catterick: 1.47 King Sharja 2.17 Invincible Ruby 2.45 Marbuzet 3.17 Indy’s Angel 3.47 Without Flaw 4.17 Spring Chorus 4.47 Dream Deal (nb).
Southwell: 2.00 Camino Rocio 2.30 The Whistle Blower 3.00 Queensworthy 3.30 Pottersjetamay 4.05 Wind Your Neck In 4.40 Lune De La Mer 5.15 Coconut Twist.
Windsor: 5.00 Honour Your Dreams 5.33 Topwarrior 6.03 Quebella 6.33 Havanagreattime 7.03 Tralee Girl 7.35 Beauld As Brass 8.10 Crest Of Light (nap).
Wolverhampton: 5.50 Very Mindful 6.20 Chilli Queen 6.50 King Kernow 7.20 Guinness Lad 7.55 Pessoa 8.30 Dumfries 9.00 Star Of Atlantis.
When asked to pick the highlight of her career so far, Doyle opted for her success aboard Nashwa in the Prix de Diane [French Oaks] in 2022. “It probably would be my first Classic on Nashwa in Chantilly,” she said. “That was special.”
At Lingfield, Aidan O’Brien’s familiar dominance in the early Epsom Classic trials threatened to turn into a monopoly after his Ballydoyle stable mopped up both trial events on the card.
Puppet Master, who beat stable companion Stay True after surviving a stewards’ inquiry, remains an outsider for the Derby on 7 June, but Giselle, the Oaks Trial winner earlier on the card, is far more prominent in the Epsom Classic betting at a top price of 14-1 for the Oaks the previous afternoon.
Puppet Master stayed on well to become O’Brien’s seventh winner of the Derby trial, but is still available at 50-1 to become the second – after Anthony Van Dyck in 2019 – to follow up in the Classic itself at Epsom. Stay True, in fact, could be the better long-term prospect from the race, as he was making only his second start.
Giselle was up against just two opponents and set off at long odds-on, so a nine-length romp to success could be seen as no more or less than might be expected. She showed a good attitude to stay on after taking a strong hold in the first mile, however, and is now at a similar price for the Classic to O’Brien’s Minnie Hauk, last week’s Cheshire Oaks winner.
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O'Brien's clean sweep with Classic candidates continues
The first week of British trials for the Epsom Classics has drawn to a close here on Saturday and Aidan O’Brien’s Ballydoyle operation can look back on a clean sweep at Chester and Lingfield over the last four days. Giselle’s easy win in the opener was followed by a 1-2 in the Derby Trial here with Puppet Master and Stay True and thus far at least, none of O’Brien’s British rivals have been able to lay a glove on Balllydoyle’s Classic candidates.
Giselle in particular could be a live contender for Epsom, in particular if she could be persuaded to settle a little better than she did here, but the French equivalent – the Prix de Diane over an extended 10 furlongs at Chantilly – is an obvious alternative if the trainer feels it will play to her strengths.
Stay True was beaten in the Derby Trial but he is possibly a better long-term prospect than the winner, having missed the whole of his juvenile season before making his racecourse debut in early April.
But Puppet Master’s win did serve to further frank the form of the Ballysax Stakes in the very early days of the campaign in late March, and the winner of that race, Delacroix, will bid to extend the current dominance of the Ballydoyle/Coolmore axis in Leopardstown’s major Derby trial tomorrow. Then it will be on to York and the track’s season-opening Dante meeting, where The Lion In Winter, long seen as O’Brien’s strongest candidate for a record-extending 11th win in the Derby, is due to put his credentials on the line in Thursday’s Dante Stakes.
Elsewhere around Britain today, Saffie Osborne edged home aboard Hickory in a frantic finish to the Victoria Cup, while Hollie Doyle, who was touched off in third in that race, has become Britain’s most successful ever female rider, edging one win in front of the now-retired Hayley Turner with a win on Brindavan at Ascot.
So it’s very much advantage Ballydoyle at this stage as we head towards Epsom on the first weekend in June, but a Classic candidate can appear from almost anywhere as so many well-bred and lightly-raced three-year-olds take their first steps of the new campaign and the picture could look very different by this time next week.
PlumptonL 1.50 Machete Beach 2.25 Proper Twelve 3.00 Walkinthewoods 3.35 Prince Quattro 4.10 Hecouldbetheone 4.45 Sea Invasion 5.20 Queen’s Theatre.
Ludlow: 2.05 Ballintubber Boy 2.40 Service Minimum 3.15 Regal Renaissance 3.50 Auntie Maggie 4.25 Jaxonne 5.00 Galway Reel.
Newcastle: 2.50 Run Of Luck 3.25 Ninth Life 4.00 Gunship 4.35 Federated 5.10 Orange Sky 5.45 Benacre 6.15 Andalprofit (nap) 6.45 Badri (nb).
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