LOUISVILLE (WHAS11) -- A female jockey has won the Kentucky Oaks twice in the last 10 years--Rosie Napravnik was draped in lilies after two races on Oaks Friday.
Now, trainer, Larry Jones hopes lightning will strike again for his filly named Street Band. She is a spirited filly with the perfect calming jockey in Sophie Doyle.
Doyle is the bearer of treats. She has become friends with a sometimes-fiery redhead. Street Band has a tendency get a little hot.
Trainer Larry Jones said she wants to go 100 miles an hour.
“But she was still her own worse enemy and was using up her energy way too early,” Jones said. “But Sophie has got her to relaxing well.”
Sophie Doyle who has been around horses since she was a toddler.
“So soon as she could walk, I got her a pony. And she used to bring the pony into the kitchen and tell me that he needed breakfast. It was called Mopsy.” Jaquie Doyle, Sophie Doyle’s mother, said
But Mopsy was not the only horse in the house.
“And I'd pull out the racing silks for the day and then would go and ride my rocking horse to each and every race that came on the TV,” Sophie Doyle said.
She didn't start riding in real races until she was 19. Her mother said Sophie is a very relaxed spiritual person. And it seems that translates to her horses.
“She's got very soft hands. She sits very quietly on a horse,” Jaquie Doyle said.
And that approach works for Street Band, who relaxed nicely and won the Fairgrounds Oaks with a devastating final kick.
“When I get aboard her, she seems to relax really well. We just talk to each other,” Sophie Doyle said. “She listens to me.”
Sophie will be the only female jockey in the race. She hopes to duplicate the wins by Rosie Napravnik in 2012 and 2014. But once on the track, she says gender is not important.
“Once I put this helmet on, put the silks on, and I walk out with those other male jockeys, to me, we're just jockeys out there,” Sophie Doyle said. “It doesn't matter, male or female, all out there to do the same job.”
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Sophie said they all go out on the race track with the same passion. She's out there to win. That's what matters.