With the likes of Kieren Fallon and Frankie Dettori failing to notch a winner at the Royal Ascot meeting in 2013 it did have the feel of a changing of the guard in the jockeys’ ranks, as some of the younger names came to the fore.
Joseph O’Brien is still only 20 years old but has already won a host of big international races. At the Royal meeting in 2013 he recorded three wins, finishing second in the top jockey table behind Johnny Murtagh.
25-year-old James Doyle matched O’Brien’s three wins in the space of just three rides, with an incredible hat-trick of victories on the second afternoon of the Royal meeting. Al Kazeem’s win in the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes was the jockey’s first Royal Ascot winner.
It was also good to see some recent champion apprentices be successful at the Royal Meeting. The likes of William Buick (champion apprentice 2008), Tom Queally (2004), and Martin Harley (2011) all had a winner each.
Adam Kirby, Richard Kingscote, and Billy Lee were three more young jockeys who put in notable winning performances at Royal Ascot 2013.
