Groundbreaker Hayley Turner opened so many doors for female jockeys

It would not be overstating her impact to call Hayley Turner a pioneering jockey.

Where Rachael Blackmore over jumps and Hollie Doyle on Turner’s beloved Flat have picked up the baton and carried it with great esteem, it is arguable that were it not for the diminutive rider from Nottinghamshire, their exploits may not have been possible at all.

Of course, there had been notable female riders before Turner arrived on the scene as an apprentice in 2000, but what she went on to achieve – sharing the champion apprentice title in 2005, becoming the first female rider to win a Group One outright on the Flat and partner 100 winners in a calendar year, plus reaching 1,000 winners – has marked her out as an icon for generations to come.

Apprenticed to Michael Bell in Newmarket having studied at the Northern Racing College, Turner’s background is horsey but not racing. Her mother was a riding instructor, so her affinity with the animals is clearly in her blood.

It is fair to say her career got off to an inauspicious start. Given her first ride at 17 by Declan Carroll in a low-grade handicap at Southwell in March 2000 on an outsider named Markellis, the horse sadly broke a leg at halfway and was put down.

She did not have to wait too long to register a first winner, though. Turner was successful on just her eighth ride at Pontefract in June that year on Mark Polglase’s Generate and not long after that Bell thought it prudent to send her to a friend of his in America, Tom Amos.

Many young jockeys from Britain find the experience of riding trackwork in the States invaluable and Turner was no different. She also spent one winter riding out for Godolphin in Dubai in 2004.

Her breakthrough season was undoubtedly in 2005, when she was champion apprentice along with Saleem Golam having ridden 44 winners and later that year she went on to register her 95th career success, meaning she had ridden out her claim, just the fourth of her sex to do so after Alex Greaves, Lisa Jones and Emma O’Gorman.

Her career continued to progress with the volume of outsides rides increasing and in 2008 she broke more new ground by becoming the first female jockey to ride 100 winners in a calendar year. In the same season, she celebrated her first Group-race win on Paul Blockley’s Lady Deauville in a Group Three in Germany. To top it off, she was voted Channel 4 Racing’s Personality of the Year.

Unfortunately, she was unable to take full advantage of such a successful spell, as in March the following year she suffered a head injury on the Newmarket gallops which ruled her out for a few months, but she picked up where she left off in 2010.

She won the Group Two Lancashire Oaks on David Elsworth’s Barshiba and the same horse provided her with a first Group One ride in the Nassau Stakes at Glorious Goodwood. Crucially, in the same year she began a fruitful partnership with Margot Did.

The speedy juvenile won her first two races for Bell, was second at Royal Ascot and in the Lowther Stakes at York and ended a busy year running respectably in the Cheveley Park.

The popular duo then combined to win two Listed races the following season but not many fancied their chances in the Nunthorpe Stakes at York, the premier five-furlong race of the season in the UK and Ireland.

Sent off a 20-1 chance, Turner had her mount prominent throughout before hitting the front and running out clear-cut winners. Incredibly, though, that was Turner’s second Group One of her career.

A month earlier at Newmarket in the July Cup, David Simcock called upon Turner to ride Dream Ahead.

Dream Ahead had the misfortune of being from the same crop as Frankel, and may well have been champion juvenile without him.

A non-stayer behind the great horse over a mile at Royal Ascot, he reverted to sprinting the following month and helped Turner create history by becoming the first female to win a Group One in Britain outright. Greaves had dead-heated on Ya Malak in the 1997 Nunthorpe.

Unfortunately for Turner, not long after Margot Did’s success in the Nunthorpe she broke her ankle, which curtailed her momentum, but she had shown without a doubt she was on a par with any jockey in the weighing room.

The following year, 2012, was Turner’s second-best numerically, with 92 wins, while she also proved her talents on the world stage by winning the Beverly D Stakes on Simcock’s I’m A Dreamer and secured a first Derby ride on Marcus Tregoning’s outsider Cavaliero.

In 2016, if Turner was unaware herself of her achievements, the fact she was made an OBE for services to horseracing surely confirmed it.

Injuries began to become a theme thereafter and with her winners’ tally dwindling, down to 40 in 2014, she made the decision to retire from the saddle at the end of the 2015 season and joined ITV Racing as a pundit.

However, she had never cancelled her licence and was subsequently handed a three-month ban for placing bets, something all licence holders are barred from doing.

Upon completion of the suspension, Turner returned to the saddle and briefly based herself in France, where authorities there had recently introduced a two kilo (4.4lb) allowance for female riders.

That spell clearly reignited a spark in her as she returned to the UK full time in February 2018 full of vigour and finally rode her first Royal Ascot winner in the Sandringham Handicap of 2019 on Charlie Fellowes’ 33-1 outsider Thanks Be.

Despite regular success in the Shergar Cup at the course, the relief on finally opening her account at Flat racing’s biggest party was palpable.

She was the first female jockey to win at the meeting since Gay Kelleway on Sprowston Boy in 1987 and then followed up in the corresponding race 12 months later on Onassis, also for Fellowes.

Turner steered Latin Lover to victory in the 2022 Palace of Holyroodhouse Stakes and it was Royal Ascot again when Docklands took the Britannia Handicap. That edged her closer to the 1,000-winner mark worldwide – a figure she reached with Tradesman at Chelmsford in November 2023.

Victory on Expressionless at Yarmouth last July was her 1,000th success in Britain, while Spirit Of Jura’s triumph at her beloved Southwell on April 2 is set to be her final winner.

Turner leaves the weighing room in a far more diverse position than which she entered it. Who knows if Doyle would be the force she is now without Turner’s exploits. Either way, there is no denying her impact.

The first female to ride 100 winners in a year, the first to reach 1,000 winners, the first to win a Group One outright in the UK and for many the woman who did the most to make sure those of her sex were viewed as equals in the world of racing in Great Britain.

Hayley Turner may have retired – again – but she can certainly be proud of the legacy she leaves behind.