DOYLE SHOWS DRIVE TO WIN
THE importance jockey Sophie Doyle placed on ensuring her partnership with filly Street Band meant that she would embark on a 10-hour round trip driving from Chicago to Kentucky every fortnight for a training workout which lasted less than two minutes.
But it has all been worth it. On Saturday, the sister of Godolphin-retained jockey James Doyle will partner Street Band in the $2million Breeders’ Cup Distaff with a genuine chance of joining Julie Krone and Rosie Napravnik as female winning jockeys at the meeting.
Doyle has ridden in the Breeders’ Cup before, partnering Fioretti to 13th in the 2015 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint at Keeneland.
But Fioretti arrived with hopes. In Street Band there are genuine expectations. Doyle, 33, said: ‘It was a 10-hour round trip to breeze Street Band. If I was like Mike Smith, Johnny Velazquez or the Ortiz brothers and I was getting on these horses day in day out like they do, then somebody else would have been on her in the quiet breezes. But I am not in that position. I thought, “You have got this opportunity again with a fantastic filly, grab it with both hands’’.’
That is what Doyle has done. Larry Jones-trained Street Band earned her berth at Santa Anita when winning the Grade One Cotillion Stakes at Parx in Philadelphia. Together Street Band and Doyle have also won the Fair Grounds Oaks and
Indiana Oaks this year. Doyle, who crossed the Atlantic in 2013, added: ‘I was riding work for Larry Jones. I rode Street Band one morning and he said, “You seem like you really fit this filly’’. He has given me a fantastic opportunity on her.
‘She has gone from strength to strength and in the Cotillion when she showed she is one of the top three-year-olds of the year right now.’
Meanwhile, Frankie Dettori, whose mounts for the Breeders’ Cup include A’Ali in the Juvenile Turf Sprint, landed his 19th Group One win of the season with Alson in the Criterium International at Longchamp yesterday.