Hollie Doyle broke American hearts when bringing Willie Mullins’ True Self with a tremendous late run to take the Neom Turf Cup in Riyadh.
Britain’s record-breaking female jockey produced True Self to collar long-time leader Channel Maker close home and lift the £437,956 first prize.
Bill Mott’s Channel Maker, a close third in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, looked like he had the race in the bag when he slipped the field at the top of straight after soaring past For The Top.
However, jockey Joel Rosario had not accounted for True Self’s abundant stamina - and the eight-year-old started to reduce the gap.
With Doyle in full drive, True Self pulled away from Channel Maker to score by a length and a quarter. The pair were four and three-quarter lengths clear of Emirates Knight in third.
The well-fancied Tilsit, trained by Charlie Hills, had a good early position but was beaten a long way from home.
Doyle enjoyed a sensational 2020 — and again looks like carrying all before her.
She said: “It was an incredible year (last year) and it’s great to get this year off winning a valuable race such as this.
“To be fair, I thought she was my best winning chance of the day. I watched all her performances and I thought she was well up to winning this. The step back in trip was an incredibly clever move by Mr Mullins. She’s a strong traveller usually over further trips, and that helped her today.
“They went an even, generous gallop all the way round. We got racing quite soon so the race fell apart quite early, but luckily I managed to latch on to the back of Ryan Moore (on Tilsit) and I got the splits up the straight.”
Doyle admitted riding in the jockeys’ challenge at the track on Friday, even though she had no luck, was a big help to her.
She said: “It made a huge difference. It was great walking into a day as important as this having the experience I gained yesterday.”
