Category: Trainers and Owners

Hollie Doyle made the perfect start to her riding career, winning on The Mongoose, trained by David Evans, on her first racecourse appearance at Salisbury in May, 2013, and has never looked back. In 2019, Doyle became the winning-most female jockey in a calendar year in Britain, with 116 winners. In 2020, she rode 151 winners, breaking her own record and, on October 22, 2021, rode her 152^nd winner of the year to do so again.

In 2015, Hollie Doyle became apprenticed to Richard Hannon, so it should be no surprise to learn that the Wiltshire trainer was her principal benefactor in 2016 and 2017. Indeed, Hannon provided her with 10 of her 33 winners in 2016 and 20 of her 59 winners in 2017. Doyle rode out her claim in November, 2017, and the following season began a fruitful association with fledgling trainer Archie Watson, which would result in her succeeding Edward Greatrex as stable jockey at Saxon Gate Stables in 2019.

Indeed, since 2018, it has been Watson that has provided Doyle with the vast majority of her winners. In 2018, he provided 22 of her 54 winners and, in her subsequent, record-breaking seasons, 46, 39 and 43 winners, respectively. All told, in the last five seasons, Doyle has ridden 150 winners for Archie Watson, 28 winners for Richard Hannon and 26 winners for William Stone; in that same period, she is also into double-figures for Tony Carroll, Alan King, David Loughnane and Richard Spencer.

Tom Scudamore is, of course, the son of Peter ‘Scu’ Scudamore, who won the Jump Jockeys’ Championship eight times between 1981/82. Scudamore Jnr. made his debut, as a 16-year-old, in an amateur riders’ race at Warwick on July 3, 1998. He finishing second on Nordic Breeze, trained by Martin Pipe, but Angel ‘Jacobs’, jockey of the easy winner, Broughtons Lure, was subsequently revealed to be Angel Monserrate, a former professional in the United States and therefore ineligible. Following a inquiry by the Jockey Club Disciplinary Commitee, Broughtons Lure was disqualified and placed last, and Scudamore was retrospectively handed his first winner.

In any event, Scudamore went on to win the Amateur Gentleman Jockeys Flat Championship in 2001, and turned professional in October that year. He rode his first winner in the paid ranks, Belle D’Anjou, trained by Martin Pipe, in a handicap hurdle at Chepstow on October 6, 2001, having ridden the same horse to victory in the Bollinger Champagne Challenge Series Final Handicap at Ascot eight days earlier.

Martin Pipe retired in April, 2006 and, the following March, Scudamore was appointed stable jockey to his son, David, who took over the training licence at Pond House Stables in Nicholashayne, Devon. At the last count, Scudamore had ridden 741 winners for the yard, 661 for David Pipe and 80 for his father.

At the time of writing, Pembrokeshire trainer Peter Bowen lies ninth in the 2021/22 National Hunt Trainers’ Championship, with 25 winners and nearly £223,000 in prize money. Unremarkably, granted that they have ridden 131 of the 138 runners Bowen has sent out so far in 2021/22, his sons Sean, 24, and James, 20, have collectively ridden all bar one of those winners.

It’s been a similar story over the last five seasons or so, although it’s worth remembering that it wasn’t until 2017/18 that James Bowen wrested the mantle of youngest champion jockey in history from his brother – who had held that distinction since 2014/15 – and had ridden just twice for his father, without success, before that season.

In any event, in the last five seasons, Sean Bowen has ridden 111 winners from 666 rides for his father, at a strike rate of 17%, while his younger brother has ridden 61 winners from 484 rides, at a strike rate of 13%. In the same period, just one other jockey, amateur Peter Bryant, has ridden more than one winner for the yard. The Bowen brothers have clearly come a long way since winning both finals of the Charles Owen pony racing series at York Racecourse on the same day in September, 2013, at the ages of 16 and 12, respectively. Peter Bowen later recalled, ‘That was pretty special.’

Born in Newtownhamilton, County Armagh, but based in Cleveland in the North of England, Brian Hughes won the Jump Jockeys’ Championship for the first time in 2019/20 with 141 winners – 19 ahead of reigning champion Richard Johnson – in a season curtailed by the coronavirus pandemic. Although, in his own words, Hughes had ridden ‘quite a bit’ for Donald McCain in preceding seasons, in May, 2018, he officially became first choice jockey at Bankhouse Stables in Cholmondeley, Cheshire.

Having ridden 24 winners from 93 rides for the yard in 2017/18, Hughes increased his seasonal tally, albeit at a reduced strike rate, to 41 winners from 311 rides in 2018/19. In his title winning season, he did so again, with 43 winners from 222 rides and in 2020/21, when he finished runner-up to Harry Skelton in the Jump Jockeys’ Championship, nonetheless enjoyed his most successful season so far, with 47 winners from 246 rides.

That said, at the time of writing, Brian Hughes leads the 2021/22 Jump Jockeys’ Championship with 73 winners – 29 ahead of nearest rival, Sean Bowen – and is long odds-on to win the jockeys’ title for a second time. In the current season, so far, he has ridden 31 winners from 111 rides for Donald McCain, at a strike rate of 28%; barring accidents, a new seasonal best for the yard looks a formality.