Hollie Doyle: ‘For a jockey, I’m lucky that I can eat what I want’

Photograph by David Vintiner

For a jockey, I’m lucky that I can eat what I want. I’m hardly even 5ft, so I’m pretty lightweight naturally. The bottom line is that weight is detrimental for jockeys and you have to make a weight every day. Unlike boxing, where they fight once every few weeks or months, we race every day, all year round. It’s not seasonal any more. So it’s pretty tough on jockeys who are a bit bigger and heavier.

A typical day, you don’t really eat. I ride out in the morning and then have a big bowl of porridge or some avocado and eggs on toast late morning. That does me for the whole day, really. I have snacks in the car – I love biltong and bananas. Then I ride and I’ll usually grab something at the races and eat it in a cardboard pot on the way home. There isn’t much glamour!

Growing up, my granny used to cook us dinner every day. We lived in town [in Herefordshire] – my mum, my dad, me and my brother – and my granny lived down the road, and she had the horses, so we’d spend most of our time there. It was very basic dinners, meat and vegetables, but she did us a cooked breakfast before school. Then at the weekend, she cooked dinner at lunchtime, like 1.30pm-ish. We were an old-fashioned family, really. The most exotic thing I had when I was a kid was a Chinese takeaway.

I left home the day I left school. So I’ve been fending for myself for a long time. When I was 16, I went to ride horses in California. I used to go on caravan holidays in Wales – I hadn’t been anywhere – so when I went to the US on my own, I was a bit shocked. It was the first time in my life I actually put on weight, because I wanted to try everything and obviously the portion sizes in America are mental. I really got into the frozen yoghurt. I was having that every day, and got really addicted.

The last three winters I’ve raced in Japan. I go with my husband [jockey Tom Marquand]. The first year we went, we were mad on the wagyu beef, because it’s just so different. My favourite dish is shabu-shabu, which is a hotpot where you then add finely cut wagyu beef and loads of vegetables. We’re normally there in the winter, so it’s always really cold, quite brutal really. But you sit down and have a bowl of noodles and it makes you feel like you’re at home. It's really weird; I don’t know how to describe it.

I’ll eat anything. But I didn’t like the beef tongue I had in Japan. And [looking] it’s quite hard to tell between the wagyu and the tongue. So you can get your pants pulled down quite easily.

Tom’s a real foodie, way more than me. It’s hard watching him having to sweat and lose the weight, because he loves his food so much. But it helps that we both are in the same line of work – I couldn’t imagine being with someone who didn’t understand. They’d probably think we’re bonkers. It’s not until you speak about what you do to normal people that you realise how weird it is.

If I go out for dinner, I’ll always have sticky toffee pudding or something chocolatey.

Lime and soda – even though it’s so boring! I don’t have time to have a hangover, and I just don’t have a drink that I really enjoy.

Chicken, bacon and mushroom tagliatelle. It’s not great for the weight, so I cook it for myself, because Tom doesn’t really eat that.

Hollie Doyle will be riding at a racecourse near you. To find your nearest fixture, visit greatbritishracing.com