ALL HAYL THE TRAILBLAZER

Nick Townsend finds Hayley Turner's grand design has no room yet for retirement plans

- Nick Townsend

With Frankie Dettori departed our shores to ride in the US can there be any more cherished and captivating figure than Hayley Turner on our racecourses? And not merely because bar a hiatus when she "retired" in 2015 only to find the urge to return irresistible - the boundary-busting jockey has been a permanent fixture for approaching a quarter of a century.

We meet during an evening meeting at Kempton just after she secures a comfortable victory on David Simcock's Aim High. The race is no more than a class 5 handicap yet such is the affection in which she is held as she strides back to weigh in the jockey is hailed and even hugged by racegoers - for some of whom she had partnered winners over the years, Turner explains and staff, too, all delighted for her.

I congratulate her, too, on a victory which takes her to just three shy of the 1,000 British winner mark. "To be honest, when I got to 1,000, with international wins (including in the U.S., where she won the Grade 1 Beverley D.

Stakes at Arlington on Simcock's I'm A Dreamer), that was my biggest relief," Turner explains. "This would be an extra little bonus, and still nice to get it done first before the other girls do it. I know Hollie's not far behind me."

Hollie Doyle, a 27-year-old in a hurry, was on the 926 winner-mark at the time of writing, and closing fast. But she was amongst those who fully acknowledged Turner's contribution to the progress of female jockeys when the latter reached her 1,000th winner overall in November last year, declaring: "She's been incredible and paved the way." Through dedication, talent and graft, this intrepid pioneer, aged 41, has struck a powerful blow for women in the saddle this century, demonstrating to those that followed there were seams of gold to be mined in British racing.