Hollie Doyle

The golden girl of racing talks to Martha Terry about smashing records and dead-lifting 125kg, her partner in crime and enjoying anonymity offthe track

- Martha Terry

“SHE could easily be a champion jockey, why not?” said Frankie Dettori after Hollie Doyle landed five winners at one meeting at Windsor in August. Hollie has already finished as the highest ever woman in the championship rankings – fourth, ahead of former treble champions Frankie himself, Silvestre de Sousa and Ryan Moore. That’s just one of the records Hollie has smashed this year. Fastest female to 50 wins in a season, most winners by a woman in a calendar year (117, beating her own record), first woman to land a five-timer – and now, a nomination for Sunday’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) award (20 December, #votehollie), alongside another record-breaking speed merchant, Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton.

A female champion jockey is now a realistic prospect – the first since records began in 1840.

“It’s an honour for someone as prolific as Frankie to say that,” Hollie says. “I’d love to be champion, but it’s not something I’d considered as I didn’t think I’d be good enough.”

Her talent is not in question. The second half of 2020 passed in a blur for Hollie as she sped from one monumental first to another: her first Royal Ascot winner (Scarlet Dragon); first Group winner (Dame Malliot); then first Group One winner (Glen Shiel) – attracting the interest of Derby-winning owner Imad Al Sagar, for whom she has been retained since August. Following a Breeders’ Cup debut in Kentucky in November, her latest accolade was becoming the first female to win at Hong Kong’s International Jockeys’ Championship last week.