Jockey Profiles: Hollie Doyle

The first in a new series of articles looking at jockeys, this one will be focusing on Hollie Doyle, writes Dave Renham.

Hollie is still just 26 and has risen up the ranks quickly. She began as an apprentice at the Richard Hannon yard in 2014 and, by 2017, had ridden out her claim. Incidentally, in 2016, while still a five pound claimer, she rode a 25/1 winner for a geegeez.co.uk syndicate, Table Manners trained by Wilf Storey at Newcastle.

The 2019 campaign was her first real milestone when she rode 116 winners, in doing so setting a new record for the number of winners achieved by a female jockey in Britain. The following year, 2020, was another big one with her first win at Royal Ascot, her first Group race success, a win on Champions Day at Ascot (the first female to achieve this) swiftly followed in the next race by her first Group 1 triumph, aboard Glen Shiel. Since then Hollie has continued to go from strength to strength and is unquestionably one of the top jockeys around.

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How to Use Profiler

Normally when gathering data for my articles on Geegeez, I use Query Tool or Draw Analyser or Pace analyser, or a combination of the three.  However, for this piece I obtained a good chunk of the data from the Profiler tool. You can find Profiler by clicking on the ‘Tools’ menu item. Once there, you will be presented with this somewhat sparse screen, and an invitation to "Enter a horse, trainer, jockey or sire name to begin":

As that instruction suggests, Profiler allows us to drill down into the record of any horse, trainer, jockey or sire. It is the same principle for each research area, but if wanting to research a jockey such as Hollie Doyle, we need to type their name into the Search bar at the top, and click the 'Jockeys tab'. This will display the following:

Clicking the 'Profile' button populates the 17 categories highlighted in blue in the first screen shot and thus creates a huge web page full of data. As the first variable in the list, the going stats will be displayed at the top and for Hollie Doyle’s search they came up as follows:

As can be seen we have a wealth of data, both win and each way. We also have a PRB figure (percentage of rivals beaten) which is an excellent ‘extra’ stat. Having data for 17 different categories all on one page is extremely useful.

For this piece I needed to adjust the Date Range filters because I wanted to look specifically at the years from 2015 to 2022. I also wanted to look at both flat (turf) and all weather racing so I set the filters as follows: (N.B. these filters were in place for the Going data shown above):

There are a number of other filters so, for example, you can look at just handicap data if you wish, just the wins, and so on. Also, we can drill into National Hunt racing data if we want to. It should be noted that when using the Profiler, it returns both UK and Irish results combined.

OK, so I have my parameters set, now it's time to dig into the stats. Before sharing my findings I should mention that as well as using the Profiler Tool for this research, I have used other sources,  including Query Tool. In all the tables profits/losses quoted are to Industry SP; I will quote Betfair SP where appropriate.

Hollie Doyle: Overall Record

Let us first look at Doyle’s baseline figures across every single runner during this eight-year period:

This is a thoroughly decent record: her A/E index of 0.91 is above the ‘average’ figure for all jockeys, which is 0.86. Likewise, her overall PRB figure of 0.54 is nicely above the 0.50 average mark. Losses of around 16 pence in the £ to SP convert to close to breaking even (losses of under 2p in the £) at exchange SP.

Hollie Doyle: Record by Year

I first wish to breakdown Doyle's stats by year. Here is a breakdown showing win percentage (or Strike Rate (SR%) if you prefer):

We can easily ignore the first year in the sample, 2015, as Hollie only had 39 rides in that year; and we can see how it often goes for a top jockey rising out of the apprentice ranks: a steady start launches into high strike rates as the claim's value is utilised, followed by a more challenging period post-riding out the claim, before blossoming into a top tier rider.

Hollie's profile mimics this perfectly: she rode out her claim in 2017 before a season of consolidation - more rides but fewer winners in 2018 - after which the last four years have seen her highest strike rates. Not only have the last four years seen her highest strike rates, but her most consistent ones too. 2019 to 2022 have seen strike rates within 1.3% of each other.

Hollie Doyle: Record by Distance

A look at her record at different distances now. I have grouped them into five distance bands and, again, I am comparing win strike rates:

The highest strike rate has occurred in the longer distance events (1m 7f or more); but, having said that, the data set is much smaller (just 199 races). Compare that to the 7f to 1 mile results which come from 1920 races, almost ten times as many. The vast majority of Doyle’s rides come in races of 1 mile or less – roughly 69% of all her rides have been over these shorter distances. This, in fact, perfectly mirrors the percentage of races which are run at a mile or shorter, which is unsurprising, I guess.

In a previous article on jockeys and run style I highlighted Doyle as a jockey that does well in handicaps on front runners; in sprints (5 to 6f) and also races of 7f to 1 mile. I will look in more detail at her run style data later.

Hollie Doyle: Record by Betting Odds / Price (SP)

Profiler gives a breakdown of performance by starting price splitting it up into seven price brackets. I have taken Hollie’s record straight from that table:

If you had backed all Doyle’s mounts focusing on the shorter end of the price (17/2 or shorter), you would have lost only 5p in the £. To Betfair SP though, that would have turned into a small profit of just over 4p in £. However, the value to be had with these runners has largely evaporated now she's a relative household name. In terms of very big priced runners (28/1 or bigger) only a handful have won. These have produced significant losses to SP and even to BSP losses stand at a weighty 35p in the £.

Hollie Doyle: Record by Course

I am now going to look at all courses where Hollie Doyle has had at least 75 rides. The courses are listed alphabetically in the table below:

I want to mention that course strike rates can sometimes be slightly misleading due to the average field sizes being vastly different from one track to another. For example, in the past eight seasons, the average field size (all races) at Ascot has been just under 12; contrast this with Ffos Las whose average has been around 7.6. Hence, using solely strike rates when comparing Ascot  with Ffos Las is not a statistically sensible play. I am not saying that a course strike rate is without use but, as with any single piece of information, it is useful to combine it with others.

The two stats that most interest me from a course perspective are the A/E indices and the PRB figures. Doyle’s figures for Yarmouth stand out with an A/E index of 1.30 and a PRB figure of 0.58. In addition the strike rate is high and she has made decent profits to SP. Her profits to BSP stand at an even more impressive +£90.55 (ROI +65.6%), and these figures are not skewed by any huge priced winners. It is also noteworthy that she has ridden winners at Yarmouth for a good number of different trainers (21 in total), so it is not one or two specific trainers providing all of the winning rides. Sticking with Yarmouth for one more stat, when Doyle has been riding a horse priced 8/1 or shorter she has secured 28 win from 88 rides. This equates to an excellent strike rate of 32%.

Before moving away from courses, one course that did not make the list due to having had only 46 rides was Pontefract. The stats, though, are very strong despite this smallish sample – 14 wins (SR 30.4%) for an SP profit of £22.19 (ROI +48.2%). A/E index of 1.55; PRB figure of 0.58.

Hollie Doyle: Record by Trainer

Some punters love to follow certain trainer / jockey combinations and, although I don't generally, I think certain combos do produce some betting opportunities that represent value. Here are the trainers for whom Doyle has ridden at least 50 times (ordered by strike rate):

As you can see, Archie Watson provides Doyle with a high proportion of her rides. Although she has not made a profit on the 939 spins in that sample, she has done on his more fancied runners. To wit, horses priced 4/1 or shorter have provided the Doyle/Watson combination with 150 wins from 418 runners (SR 35.9%) showing a small SP profit of £14.07 (ROI +3.4%). To BSP this improves to +£40.68 (ROI +9.7%).

Her record with Alan King is excellent; not just because of the profit figure, but because the PRB is exceptionally high at 0.64. One other combo to mention is Hollie with the Gosden stable. The results are not in the table because they have only combined on 36 horses but, of these, 13 have won (SR 36.1%) for an excellent SP profit of £32.32 (ROI +89.8%). Where the Doyle/King PRB is impressive, the Doyle/Gosden figures trump them, standing at 0.69 (i.e. 69% of all rivals beaten). I think it would be worth keeping a close eye on the Gosden and King stables this season (and beyond), looking out for any Hollie Doyle booking.

Hollie Doyle: Record with Days since last run / horse layoff

A unique feature of the Profiler Tool (compared with the Query Tool) is the fact it gives you data for days since the horse last ran. Doyle’s figures are as follows:

As we can see Hollie has made a profit on horses whose last run was within a week of their prior start. As a general rule, my assumption, as with many others, has been that horses with shorter breaks outperform horses that are off the track for longer. This is the first time I have seen any PRB figures for any fitness based variable such as this. It is interesting, and pleasing to see the sliding scale from 0.61 down to 0.41. These findings give me the impetus to check PRB figures for a bigger group of runners to see if the same sliding scale is repeated. I am guessing it is – if so it might become the basis for an article in the future.

Hollie Doyle: Draw Awareness

Another first for me: this is the first time I have tried to drill down into this type of idea. Essentially punters, bookies, trainers and jockeys are aware of draw biases. Some will over- or under-estimate bias, but one would hope that seasoned jockeys understand the effect of the draw at most courses better than most. It is clearly a difficult area to research but I thought I had enough data for Hollie at one particular course, namely Kempton, to try to do this. My idea was simple: I wanted to compare her record in 8 or more runner handicaps at Kempton over 5f to 1 mile, with other jockeys, purely from a draw perspective. Kempton over these four distances (5f, 6f, 7f & 1m) offers a low draw edge and hence I wanted to compare Doyle’s record when drawn 1 to 4 (the best four draws) with all other jockeys. To do this, I decided to calculate the relevant PRB figures as these I would assume to be the most accurate, as they create bigger data sets than, say, using win and each way data.

Hollie had over 100 qualifying handicap rides when drawn in stalls 1 to 4 over these Kempton distances and her PRB figure was 0.60. The combined figure for all other jockeys is 0.55. This leads me to conclude, at least from these Kempton stats, that she has good draw awareness: she has performed notably above the norm when her horses have been well drawn at Kempton. I did check the non-handicap figures at Kempton using the same parameters – in these cases, she had fewer qualifying rides than in handicaps (44), but her PRB figure was a very impressive 0.63, the overall non handicap jockey figure stands at 0.53.

This is clearly a challenging area to research in great depth from an individual jockey perspective, due to small course and distance data sets. For example, you probably would not get enough individual data at Chester unless a jockey had ridden there regularly for 20 years or more, as that track does not host many meetings over a 12 month period. Kempton, however, has so many race meetings each year this is a course that lends itself to this avenue of research. Something else to maybe write about more in the future?

One further caveat worth mentioning with this type of research is the fact that there is some selection bias in the quality of top riders' mounts compared with the average.

Hollie Doyle: Record by Run Style

I mentioned earlier a recent article in which I touched upon Doyle’s positive record on front runners in handicaps at the sprint distances of 5f and 6f, but also at 7f and 1m. Well, Hollie's record from the front is actually extremely good across the board – handicaps / non-handicaps, and any distance. Yes, she has a higher strike rate on front runners running over shorter distances, but in all races of 1m1f or more her strike rate on these pace setters still hits just over 20% (A/E 1.10). This ranks her 9^th out of all jockeys currently riding in the UK in terms of win strike rate (150 front running rides or more over 1m1f+ from 2015 to 2022), 12^th if including Irish jockeys. In terms of A/E index she lies 11^th (UK), 15^th (UK and Ireland). For the record the average win strike for ALL jockeys over 1m1f+ stands at 15.6%.

Here is a breakdown of Hollie Doyle's run style performance across ALL races:

She has an excellent close to one win in four record with front runners, whereas with hold up horses this drops markedly to less than one win in every 12. The A/E figures correlate as the following chart shows:

As regular readers of my articles will know front runners have an edge at a majority of courses and distances, so the patterns seen for Doyle should come as no real surprise. That said, her figures are well above the norm over all distances, and if she is booked to ride a horse that often front runs, that ought to be seen as a double positive in cases where the pace map indicates an even tempo or, especially, Hollie's mount is the probable lone speed angle.

Before winding up the run style stats, let me share her record when riding the favourite:

More evidence, as if it was really needed, about the importance of early track position.

[As a side note, using favourite in run style analysis removes any selection bias regarding 'good horses at the front, bad ones at the back'. In spite of this levelling of the playing field, one invariably sees this type of strong front of field bias. Keep this in mind if you're currently backing plenty of fancied horses with a hold up run style!]

Some Extra Hollie Doyle Nuggets

With the main body of the article complete let me just share with you a few extra stats or nuggets that may be of interest:

1. When Hollie retains the ride after winning last time, her record reads 67 wins from 310 (SR 21.6%). Backing all runner to BSP would have yielded a profit of £31.12 (ROI +10.0%).
2. Horses that finished second last time have a good record with Doyle on board. Of the 585 qualifiers, 139 have won (SR 23.8%) for a BSP profit of £74.03 (ROI +12.7%).
3. In very small fields (2 to 4 runners) Doyle has secured 54 wins from 142 rides (SR 38.0%) for a BSP profit of £65.27 (ROI +46.0%). She made significant profits if backing to Industry SP, too (+£53.79).
4. In Class 1 races, Hollie has done well if the horse has been fancied (defined as priced 10/1 or shorter). 25 wins from 109 (SR 22.9%) for a BSP profit of £26.29 (ROI +24.1%).

Hollie Doyle Main Takeaways

1. Doyle has been extremely consistent in the past four years and as I am penning this piece her strike rate for 2023 is above her norm at 15.8%.
2. When riding more fancied runners (17/2 or less) Hollie has made a small profit to BSP, though that may be due to historical data so some caution is advised.
3. She has an excellent record at both Yarmouth and Pontefract.
4. Doyle should be noted when riding for Alan King or the Gosden stable and, also, when riding for Archie Watson look out for shorter priced horses (4/1 or less).
5. If Hollie is on board a horse that had run in the past seven days it tends to be a positive.
6. At Kempton in races of 1m or less when drawn 4 or lower she has performed well above the norm.
7. Doyle is an excellent rider from the front at all distances.
8. The four "extra nuggets" shared immediately above.

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There are plenty of Hollie Doyle stats to get to grips with in the above: lots of positives, and the occasional negative, too. Hollie should continue to give us plenty of potential betting opportunities in the coming weeks, months and, I hope, years. I really rate her as one of the very best around and, more importantly, the stats tend to agree!

- DR

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