Photo:

Courtesy Hong Kong Jockey Club

Two women, whose passion for riding and racing was nurtured in the English countryside, are determined to create history in the International Jockeys’ Championship at Happy Valley on Wednesday.

Hollie Doyle, 28, who rode her 1,000th career winner at Goodwood, West Sussex, in September 2024, and Rachel King, 34, Oxford-born but now an Aussie after 11 years riding in Sydney, will bid to register a first female win in the series.

“It’s an honor to be selected,” Doyle said. “The HKJC (Hong Kong Jockey Club) pick jockeys from the best around the world that they know will be competitive and serious in their attempt to win the trophy. It creates quite an intense atmosphere.

“We all get on great. We know each other from travelling the world, but everyone is there for only one thing, and that is to win. It is the atmosphere it should be when you are riding at that level, competing for that amount of money. It’s intense, and that’s how I like it really.”

In 2020, Doyle became the first female to win a leg of the IJC and went on to take equal third overall, while the following year she went one better to finish joint second. This is the fifth consecutive year she has been selected.

“I keep praying I will be asked back. It’s such a great competition. I hope I can get my name on that trophy one day.  It would mean so much,” she said.

Doyle’s father was a jumps jockey and her mother regularly rode in Arabian horse races. Around horses from a very early age, she was a member of a Herefordshire pony club before riding in her first pony race at age 9. Pony racing is a popular training ground for future jockeys. After leaving school she took a job at a stable in Wales before a stint riding trackwork at Santa Anita at age 16.

Rachel King has many parallels with Doyle. King also was brought up with horses. Her father raced point-to-pointers, a purely amateur form of jump racing that is often a shop window for future National Hunt stars, and she hunted with the Old Berks, one of the oldest hunts in Britain.

Initially, she rode over jumps as an amateur with limited success for dual-purpose trainer Alan King, no relation, and dabbled in flat racing, riding one winner when apprenticed to Mark Usher. She then reverted to the amateur ranks and joined Clive Cox as a racing secretary with occasional rides in amateur flat races.

But the turning point in her career came when she ventured to Sydney, working first for the Bart and James Cummings partnership before joining Gai Waterhouse as a stablehand for 12 months, a placement that progressed to the re-booting of her riding career, which was so successful she won the Sydney champion apprentices title in 2016-17.

“My big break as a jockey came winning the Spring Champion Stakes on Maid Of Heaven for Mark Newnham (Randwick, October 2018). It was my first Group 1, a real milestone,” King said. She has gone on to win another four Group 1s, including the six-furlong Coolmore Stud Stakes (G1), a stallion-making race, at Flemington last year.

The parallels don’t end there. In early November this year, both women rode at the Breeders’ Cup in Del Mar before both flying on to ride in the Melbourne Cup (G1) at Flemington only days later. Success eluded them in both places. In the Melbourne Cup, Doyle came in 14th aboard Sea King and King finished 21st on The Map.

The day after the Cup, Doyle flew out to join husband Tom Marquand in Japan, where their riding contracts have been extended to Jan. 13. King flew back to her base in Sydney but she, too, has another stint lined up in Japan, which will start in the New Year.

It seems the two women also are members of a mutual admiration society. Doyle says of King: “I remember years ago riding against Rachel in an Arab race in England when I was a young kid. It is amazing what she has achieved in Australia. We see each other occasionally on the international circuit, and we get along well.”

King said of Doyle, “Hollie is great, a lovely girl. I admire everything she’s done. I couldn’t do what she’s done in England. I tried but I couldn’t break through. She’s done an incredible job for all female jockeys over there. She paved the way for them.”

Now it is all up to what horses the two women are allocated in the IJC. It is literally the luck of the draw, though these days a computerized formula is used to evenly spread the more attractive mounts.  Either would be a worthy winner of the IJC while adding another historic chapter to a great tournament.

The final word goes to Rachel King. “I don’t know what it is about the sport but wherever I’ve gone in the world, I’ve got along with the other girls. The girls are very close. Even with the traveling, I enjoy these meetings. They bring a different aspect. It makes you just that little bit more competitive. You are representing your country, which means there’s more pressure. But it’s pressure that I enjoy.”

Coverage of the entire Hong Kong Thoroughbred season at Horse Racing Nation is made possible through a sponsorship by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.