Nicola Currie and Hollie Doyle, the two leading female jockeys in Britain this season, fought out the finish of the main supporting race on Ascot’s King George card as Currie’s Raising Sand got up to beat Kaeso by a head in the £150,000 International Handicap.
Currie rode a perfect race on a horse who thrives at Ascot and needs to be ridden patiently for much of the way before picking his way through the field in the last two furlongs. Kaeso, the 11-2 favourite, was briefly in front in the closing stages but Currie had timed her run ideally and put Raising Sand’s head in front with two strides to spare.
“I was lucky to follow Hollie through,” Currie said. “I was worried she’d got away from me but he stuck it out well.
“You need so much to go right with him the way you have to ride him. I was concerned about three out they were all tight in front of me and were the gaps going to start opening. They opened perfectly and we got there.
“You need the big winners on the Saturday. That’s when people are going to notice you.”
Raising Sand has now given Currie the two most valuable wins of her career, having also taken a £110,000 first prize in a handicap at Ascot last October. “She’s top-class, don’t doubt that,” Jamie Osborne, the trainer, said of Currie. “This horse was the one that initially cemented our alliance last year and now she’s riding all my horses. She’s doing a fantastic job and she’s a great team player.
“I don’t worry about putting her on anything and neither should anyone else.”
