Where, and when, did Hollie Doyle ride her first winner under rules?

Standing just 5′ tall, capable of riding at 8st 0lb and nicknamed the ‘Pocket Rocket’, Hollie Doyle has taken the horse racing world by storm in recent years. In 2019, she rode 116 winners, thereby becoming just the third female jockey, after Hayley Turner and Josephine Gordon, to ride a hundred winners in a calendar year; she also broke the previous record, 106, set by Gordon in 2017. In 2020, even with 75 days of racing lost to the Covid-19 pandemic, Doyle increased her winning tally to 151, breaking her own record.

Indeed, 2020 proved to be something of a ‘breakthrough’ season. Doyle rode her first Royal Ascot winner, Scarlet Dragon, trained by Alan King, in the Duke of Edinburgh Stakes and her first Group 1 winner, Glen Shiel, trained by Archie Watson, in the British Champion Sprint Stakes, back at Ascot later in the year. In 2021, so far, she has ridden 146 winners, at the same 15% strike rate she achieved in 2020, so is on schedule to break her own record again.

Of course, everyone starts somewhere and while it seems a very, very long time ago that Hollie Doyle rode The Mongoose, trained by David Evans, to a half-length victory in the Betfred Mobile Sports Lady Riders’ Handicap at Salisbury on May 5, 2013, that was he first success under rules. At that stage, she was a 16-year-old amateur rider and still at school.

Which horse was Tim Easterby’s only Classic winner?

At the time of writing, Tim Easterby is enjoying his most successful season ever, with 129 winners and £1.85 million in prize money, so far, in 2021. His seasonal highlight was, undoubtedly, Winter Power, whose victory in the Nunthorpe Stakes at York was his first at Group 1 level since Somnus won the Prix de la Foret at Longchamp in October, 2004. To his credit, Easterby has saddled at least 50 winners in every season, bar the first two, since taking over the training licence at Habton Grange Stables, near Malton, North Yorkshire from his father, the legendary Miles Henry ‘Peter’ Easterby, in 1996. However, prior to 2021, he had saddled over a hundred winners in a season just twice, in 2018 and 2019.

Despite the paucity of winners at the highest level in recent years, Easterby has won a total of 10 Group 1, or Grade 1, races during his career. His sole Classic success came in the St. Leger at Doncaster in 2002, when Bollin Eric, ridden by Kevin Darley, stayed on well to beat Highest and Bandari by 1¼ lengths and 2 lengths. Owned by long-standing patrons Sir Neil and Lady Westbrook, Bollin Eric was winning for the first time in his three-year-old campaign. Neverthless, he became the first Yorkshire-based horse to win the St. Leger since Peleid in 1973. Easterby later reflected on his victory, saying, ‘It was very important for me; it’s what every trainer wants to do.’

When did Richard Kingscote leave Tom Dascombe?

A graduate of the British Racing School in Newmarket, Richard Kingscote was apprenticed to Wiltshire trainer Roger Charlton, with 85 winners to his name, when Tom Dascombe came calling. Reflecting on those early days, Kingscote said later, ‘I was a bit dubious when Guy Jewell, my agent, told me Tom wanted me to ride all his horses. That just doesn’t happen, does it?’

Nevertheless, what followed would become one of the most enduring and successful partnerships of recent times. Kingscote is probably still best known for his association with the ill-fated Brown Panther, whom he rode to ten of his eleven career victories, including the Irish St. Leger at the Curragh in 2014. In September, 2019, he and Dascombe reached the career milestone of 500 winners with the victory of the two-year-old filly Brookside Banner at Haydock. At that point, Kingscote said, ‘Tom’s a lovely boss and all credit to him for giving me his support. Long may it continue.’

Despite that assertion, in early 2021, when invited by Sir Michael Stoute to pursue opportunities in Newmarket, Kingscote made the shock decision to relinquish his position as stable jockey to Tom Dascombe. Interviewed in August that year, Dascombe said, ‘He [Kingscote] hasn’t been our stable jockey basically for 2021.’ Kingscote has still ridden more often for Dascombe than any other trainer in 2021. However, his strike rate is a mediocre 7-120 (6%), compared with 19-97 (20%) for Sir Michael Stoute.

Which horse was Paul Nicholls’ first Cheltenham Festival winner?

Paul Nicholls, who won the National Hunt Trainers’ Championship for the twelfth time in 2020/21, began his training career at Manor Farm Stables in Ditcheat, Somerset in 1991. Within six years of being granted a licence, he had established himself as an up-and-coming trainer, but finally hit the big time when winning the King George VI Chase at Kempton with See More Business on Boxing Day, 1997.

As far as the Cheltenham Festival was concerned, it would not be until 1999 that Nicholls his first winner, but when he did take his seat at the top table of National Hunt trainers he did so in some style. Nicholls opened his account with Flagship Uberalles in the Arkle Challenge Trophy but, during a memorable week, quickly added Call Equiname in the Queen Mother Champion Chase and See More Business in the Cheltenham Gold Cup to his winning tally. In fact, those three winners were sufficient to win him the leading trainer award for the first time.

At the last count, Nicholls had saddled 46 winners at the Cheltenham Festival and won the leading trainer award six times. He has won all four main ‘championship’ races at least once and, alongside Tom Dreaper and Nicky Henderson, is jointly the leading trainer in the history of the Queen Mother Champion Chase with six wins.

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