Flat Jockey of the Year

THE NOMINATIONS

BY JAMES STEVENS

WILLIAM BUICK

Most top jockeys will occasionally enjoy a golden spell when they can seemingly do no wrong in the big races. For William Buick, that spell appeared to last all year.

From a brilliant dominance in Dubai up until a super Saturday in the Breeders’ Cup, Buick has been a leading figure in the majority of the world’s biggest races this season.

There was the odd frustration early on, such as when Master Of The Seas was just touched off in the 2,000 Guineas and when he had a rear view of 40-1 stablemate Adayar from the back of Hurricane Lane in the Derby.

However, the Craven, Dante, Yorkshire Cup and three Royal Ascot winners were in the bag as he notched up his quickest half-century, and further big prizes included the King George, this time on Adayar, before his association with Hurricane Lane provided him with further big days in the Irish Derby, Grand Prix de Paris and St Leger.

Buick also got married on the Sunday after Glorious Goodwood, but there were no signs of pre-wedding nerves as he was crowned top jockey for the meeting with seven winners.

The two-year-old Native Trail shot to stardom under Buick in the National Stakes and the Dewhurst before attention turned to a

pulsating battle for the jockeys title and his efforts set up a thrilling climax on the final day of the season.

Unfortunately at the end of a brilliant championship campaign which yielded 151 winners he fell just two winners short, but a memorable year was not finished. For at the Breeders’ Cup he would ride a further three top-level winners to raise his Group 1 tally for 2021 to a staggering 12.

HOLLIE DOYLE

Since making her race-riding debut in 2013, Hollie Doyle has developed into one of the top Flat riders in Britain and last year’s winner of this award enjoyed another brilliant season.

She finished last season with a famous Champions Day double, and Long Distance Cup winner Trueshan has proved to be her superstar horse in the staying division once again, the pair teaming up for Al Shaqab Goodwood Cup glory in July and repeating their Champions Day success in brave style in October.

That was far from it in terms of big winners for Hollie however. She started the year by giving True Self a brilliant ride to land the ultravaluable Neom Turf Cup in Saudi Arabia, riding for Willie Mullins no less, and went on to land a plethora of good prizes for a broad range of trainers, including the Atalanta, Dick Poole and Firth of Clyde Stakes.

But it is the sheer number of winners Doyle regularly rides which makes her so impressive. A week before the Cheltenham Festival, she had us all talking about all-weather racing, having ridden a mesmerising five-timer at Kempton at odds of 2,521-1. Staying humble, as always, she said in her post-race interview that she wanted “to achieve more”, which is not what her rivals would have wanted to hear.

At the time of writing, with six weeks still to go, her 2021 stands at a scarcely believable 162 winners, already well clear of her record set 151 in the previous season. That also comes at a pretty eye-catching strike-rate of 15 per cent.

The reigning Flat Jockey of the Year has given herself a great chance of taking the award again.

OISIN MURPHY

The Jockeys’ Championship was a fascinating watch from start to finish, but Oisin Murphy ultimately triumphed for an impressive third consecutive season.

It took a whopping 153 victories for Murphy to deny William Buick and lift the title on Champions Day at Ascot, rounding off a superb year on the racecourse, but it was far from just a numbers game with the rider enjoying many landmark days.

Murphy experienced the highs and lows of the job in a space of an hour on the biggest stage of them all at Royal Ascot. He had suffered the agony of losing a Group 1 in the stewards room after Dragon Symbol was first past the post in the Commonwealth Cup, but he needed only his next ride to bounce back at racing’s elite level, thanks to a brilliant victory on Alcohol Free in the Coronation Stakes.

By the end of that week he had ridden five winners and been crowned top jockey for the meeting, marking another achievement for the 25-year-old, while Alcohol Free went on to give him an even bigger win when flying down the outside to beat the boys in the Qatar Sussex Stakes at Glorious Goodwood.

Big wins did not stop there. While his personal battles off the course became headline news late in the year, he remained as effective as ever on the track and captured further Group 1 prizes on Arc day and at the Breeders’ Cup.

Indeed while Murphy did not match his record year of 2019 - Covid restrictions no doubt a factor again - there is a fair argument to make that he is riding better than ever. His strike-rate in the championship rose from 18 per cent in 2020, to 22 per cent.

DAVID PROBERT

A running theme of the Flat season was that of big days for David Probert, who completely trashed his previous best tally.

The Welsh jockey headed into the campaign hoping to better the 112 winners he rode in 2019 and it was evident from an early stage he was well on course to crush that record. As it stands he has ridden

155 winners in the calendar year - and in doing so has registered a best ever strike-rate of 14 per cent.

Among the highlights was a golden spell in July and August which are numerically the best two months of his career. In August alone he rode a whopping 29 winners, very nearly a winner for every day of the month.

Five of those winners came on one brilliant afternoon at Ffos Las, where he shone at his local track. He was quoted in the press afterwards saying he was “loving every minute” of that brilliant summer, and the run did not stop there as he rode a treble the following day.

Probert also made his presence felt in some of the big races, including when guiding top juvenile Sandrine to a somewhat unexpected Albany Stakes success at Royal Ascot. His former mentor Andrew Balding and owner Kirsten Rausing kept him on board, and they were rewarded when she struck in the Duchess Of Cambridge Stakes next time before going on to place in two more top fillies’ races.

Other big wins in a fine season include the York Stakes, the Sweet Solera Stakes, the Melrose Handicap and the Bronte Cup.