Category: Jockeys

Born in Cambridge on April 22, 1988, James Doyle is the son of former trainer Jacqueline Doyle and the brother of fellow jockey Sophie Doyle, who has been based in America since 2014. he had his first ride in public on June 4, 2004, finishing unplaced in an amateur riders’ handicap at Goodwood on the 47-rated Somayda, trained by his mother. Winless after 16 rides in his inaugural season, he opened his account on June 1, 2005, steering another moderate type, Farnborough, trained by Richard Price, to victory in an apprentices’ handicap at Wolverhampton.

Fast forward seven years and, in 2012, Doyle became stable jockey to Roger Charlton at the historic Beckhampton Stables, near Marlborough, Wiltshire. He wasted little time in opening his Group 1 account, winning the Dubai Duty Free at Meydan on Cityscape on March 31 that year. The following summer he added three more victories at the highest level to his career tally, courtesy of Al Kazeem in the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh, the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown Park.

In 2014, Doyle was offered a retainer by Godolphin, under the auspices of Sheikh Mohammed, and until 2016 rode as first jockey to Saeed bin Suroor at Godolphin Stables, Newmarket. He was subsequently demoted to become second jockey to Charlie Appleby, behind William Buick, at Moulton Paddocks, Newmarket. Nevertheless, Doyle his most successful season so far, numerically, in 2018, when he rode 156 winners from 633 rides, at a strike rate of 25%, and amassed nearly £4.75 million in total prize money. In 2019, he won both the King’s Stand Stakes and the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot on Blue Point, trained by Appleby, but quit Godolphin in 2023 to become first jockey to Wathnan Racing, under the auspices of Sheikh Tamim ibn Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar.

On the penultimate day of the 2018/19 National Hunt season, Richard Johnson rode Load Up Time, trained by Gordon Elliot, to victory at Perth to reach two hundred winners in a season for just the second time in his career. Nevertheless, his seasonal total was more than enough to win the Stobart Jump Jockeys’ Championship for the fourth consecutive year.

 

After starting his riding career in the point-to-point field, under the guidance of the late David ‘Duke’ Nicholson – who would provide his first Cheltenham Festival winner, Anzum, in the Stayers’ Hurdle in 1999 – Johnson became Champion Conditional Jockey in 1995/96. Thereafter, every season for the next two decades he set off in determined, but ultimately fruitless, pursuit of Sir Anthony McCoy in his quest for his first jockeys’ title. Indeed, Johnson was runner-up in the jockeys’ championship sixteen times, before finally emerging from the shadow of his arch rival – who retired at the end of the 2014/15 season – to win become Champion Jockey in 2015/16, with a career-best total of 235 winners.

 

In 2016/17 and 2017/18, fell just short of a double century of winners, with a seasonal tally of 176 and 189 winners, respectively. Nevertheless, he enjoyed notable victories in the Hennessy Gold Cup, Welsh National and Cheltenham Gold Cup with Native River, trained by Colin Tizzard, and the Triumph Hurdle with Defi Du Seul, trained by Nicky Henderson. Indeed, at the Cheltenham Festival, Johnson is the fourth most successful jockey of all time and, following the retirement of Ruby Walsh, is one of just two jockeys still riding to have won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase and Stayers’ Hurdle. In 2018/19, he rode over a hundred winners for the twenty-third season in a row.

 

For all his success, Johnson has a less-than-enviable record in the Grand National. Having missed the world famous steeplechase in 2017 and 2018 – in anticipation of a horse with a ‘good chance’ – he took his record twenty-first ride on Rock The Kasbah, trained by Philip Hobbs, in the 2019 renewal. Sadly, Rock The Kasbah was always behind and fell at the first open ditch on the second circuit, leaving Johnson with a record of two second places – on What’s Up Boys in 2002 and Balthazar King in 2014 – and 15 non-completions from 21 rides.

Venezuela-born Javier Castellano won the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Jockey in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, making him one of just two jockeys to win four consecutive Eclipse Awards and, in 2017, was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame. Castellano, 41, first moved to the United States in June, 1997, and rode his first winner stateside, Phone Man, at Calder Race Course, now Gulfstream Park West, in Florida the following month. However, over two decades later, Castellano is riding at the top of his form and is arguably the best jockey in North America, if not the world.

 

Castellano comes from good racing stock. His late father, Abel, who was murdered during a robbery attempt in Venezuela in 2000, his uncle and his younger brother, Abel Jr., were all jockeys and Abel Jr. is now a trainer in Maryland after a riding career cut short by concussion in December, 2015.

 

Having relocated from Florida to the higher-profile New York State circuit in 2001, Castellano first found fame as the jockey of Ghostzapper, trained by Robert Frankel, who was unbeaten in four starts, including the Breeders’ Cup Classic, in his four-year-old season in 2004 and was subsequently named Eclipse Horse of the Year. Two years later, in 2006, Castellano recorded his first ‘Triple Crown’ win on Bernardini, trained by Thomas Albertrani, in the Preakness Stakes, but his victory was overshadowed by the hind leg fracture suffered by the Kentucky Derby winner, Barbaro, which led to the end of his racing career and, ultimately, to his demise.

 

It would be another eleven years before Castellano won his second Triple Crown race, the Preakness Stakes again, in 2017, on Cloud Computing, trained by Chad Brown. The Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes remain glaring omissions on his CV but, even so, at the time of his induction to the Hall of Fame, had ridden 4,644 winners and earned $276 million in prize money. In the autumn of 2018, Castellano reached the milestone of 5,000 winners and, shortly afterwards, recorded his ninth and tenth Breeders’ Cup wins, on Bulletin in the Juvenile Turf Sprint and City Of Light in the Dirt Mile.

Ryan Moore is part of a racing dynasty founded by his late grandfather, Charlie, a used-car salesman who became a trainer, and now headed by his father, Gary, a trainer and former jump jockey. His brothers, Jamie and Joshua, are both current jump jockeys and his sister, Hayley, was a leading amateur rider before turning her hand to television presenting, on the Sky Sports Racing TV channel.

 

In 2001, at the age of 18, Moore was apprenticed to trainer Richard Hannon Snr. in Marlborough, Wiltshire. With the support of the man who would become, at the time of his retirement in November, 2013, the most prolific trainer in the history of British horse racing, Moore became Champion Apprentice in 2003, with 52 winners, and Champion Jockey in 2006, with 182 winners. Three months on the sidelines with a broken wrist in 2007 put paid to any further jockeys’ title aspirations, at least temporarily, but at the end of the year Moore was appointed stable jockey to Sir Michael Stoute in Newmarket, Suffolk.

 

Under the auspices of the ten-time Champion Trainer, Moore became Champion Jockey again in 2008, and in 2009, and the following season won his first British Classics. In fact, that year he completed the Derby – Oaks double on Workforce, trained by Stoute, and Snow Fairy, trained by Ed Dunlop. Further Classic success followed, in the 1,000 Guineas, on Homecoming Queen, in 2012 and the Derby, on Ruler Of The World, in 2013. Both those winners were trained by Aidan O’Brien and, in April, 2015, it was announced that Moore would ride the ‘main horses’ for Ballydoyle. Since that appointment, Moore has ridden six more British Classic winners, all bar one for Aidan O’Brien.

 

A softly spoken, perhaps even reticent, individual, Moore is nonetheless technically excellent, tactically astute and, arguably, one of the best, if not the best, jockeys in the world. He is one of just four British-based jockeys still riding to feature in the all-time top twenty, but his horsemanship, courage and timing have been seen throughout the racing world, including Europe, North America and the Far East.