• The week’s significant milestones
100 Bauyrzhan Murzabayev
Germany: With 11 winners at three meetings last week, German champion Bauyrzhan Murzabayev extended his lead in the title race – topping the 100 mark in the process.
The cavorting Kazakh rode a four-timer at Mulheim on Wednesday [Oct 14], followed by three winners at Leipzig on Saturday [Oct17] and another four at Baden-Baden on Sunday [Oct 18].
Murzabayev brought up the century with Ralf Rohne-trained Danka in the fourth at Leipzig.
The highlight of Sunday’s quartet came with the victory of Andreas Wohler-trained Principe in the €200,000 Ferdinand Leisten Memorial, the nation’s most valuable two-year-old race.
117 Hollie Doyle
GB: Hollie Doyle rightly earned headlines for her high-profile double at Ascot on Saturday [Oct 17] featuring a maiden G1 triumph on Glen Shiel in the British Champions Sprint.
It was quite a week for the 24-year-old, who also broke her own record for most winners in a calendar year by a female jockey in Britain with her 117th success of 2020 at Kempton Park on Wednesday [Oct 14] evening.
She’s a record breaker! Hollie Doyle lauded by Hayley Turner and Francesca Cumani
Doyle went one better than last year’s mark of 116 when she partnered State Occasion to win a nursery for trainer Ralph Beckett. Given that the season was suspended for 75 days between March and June owing to Covid-19, it is a fair bet Doyle would have surpassed her personal best even sooner in a normal year.
41 John Oxx
Ireland: Dual Derby- and Arc-winning trainer John Oxx, best known for his handling of the great Sea The Stars, last week announced his retirement at the end of the current season after 41 years with a licence.
The elder statesman of Ireland’s training ranks, 70-year-old has trained 33 G1 winners, among them 12 Classics in Britain and Ireland. Sea The Stars was responsible for six of them during his incredible three-year-old campaign in which he added the Arc to his pair of Classic victories in Britain.
Oxx also trained Sinndar to win the Arc after landing Derbys in both Britain and Ireland for the Aga Khan, with whom the trainer had a long association.
9 Golden Sixty
Hong Kong: Golden Sixty, who completed last season’s four-year-old Classic series, took his winning streak to nine in a row with victory in the Sha Tin Trophy on Sunday [Oct 18].
The Francis Lui-trained gelding, who has won 12 of his 13 career starts, is heading towards December’s Longines Hong Kong International Races. Among those he defeated in Sunday’s G2 contest was dual Horse of the Year Beauty Generation.
12 Melody Belle
New Zealand: Melody Belle, dual NZ Horse of the Year, landed her 12th G1 triumph at Hastings on Saturday [Oct 17] when she looked in a class of her own in the Livamol Classic.
Ridden by Troy Harris, the Jamie Richards-trained six-year-old comfortably held her stablemate Avantage to repeat last year’s victory in the 2,040-metre (1m2f) event.
“They only went steady for the first half of the race so there was a touch of concern, but she was explosive in the end,” Richards said. “I don’t like to say too much leading into races but she hadn’t put a foot wrong and she was awesome today, just a great mare.”
200 Tyler Gaffalione
USA: With a double at Keeneland on Saturday [Oct 17] Tyler Gaffalione became the third US jockey (after Irad Ortiz and Luis Saez) to reach 200 winners in 2020. It is the fifth time in six years the 26-year-old has reached the double century.
TW3: TRC rankings star: Hollie Doyle
TW3: Meanwhile in … Mornington: Michelle Payne breaks new ground – again!
World top 20 racehorses | World top jockeys and trainers
Visit the Horse Racing Planet home page for more great horse racing stuff