Doyle revels in her new role as jockey for elite

In a normal season, leading international jockeys would be converging on Ascot for the most popular race day outside of the Royal meeting.

But the Shergar Cup four-team event, including an all-women’s team for which record-breaking Hollie Doyle ought to have been a shoo-in this year, has been cancelled because of coronavirus.

Doyle, who set a best score by a woman in a calendar year with 116 winners in 2019, has already posted 81 wins this year so is well ahead of schedule to beat that mark in 2020.

The 23-year-old from Hereford has ridden her first Royal Ascot winner – only the third female jockey to do so – picked up her first Group Two winner and is fifth in the Flat Jockeys’ Championship.

And a week ago she was appointed first jockey to Imad Alsagar,

one half of the Kuwaiti partnership whose 25 horses are with some of the sport’s elite trainers, including John Gosden, Roger Charlton, Roger Varian and Amy Murphy. In this role, she heads to Haydock to ride Alsagar’s Extra Elusive, trained by Charlton, in the Group Three Betvictor Rose Of Lancaster Stakes.

“The job came out of the blue when I was approached by Tony Nerses [Alsagar’s racing manager],” Doyle said. “I was delighted to get the opportunity.”

The link paid off at Lingfield on Tuesday, when she rode her first winner for Gosden, on Faisal – in only her second ride for the owner.

Extra Elusive will be her fourth ride and her first Group race for Alsagar. She said: “He hasn’t won for quite a long time but his run, when second at Newbury, was good. Pablo Escobarr, who was behind him, won at Glorious Goodwood so, on his day, he is well capable even stepping up to Group Three level.”