Hayley Turner is a professional jockey based in the United Kingdom. She was born on 3 January 1983.
Turner is widely considered to be the first woman to achieve a sustained, day-in, day-out, successful career as a professional jockey in the UK. Kirsty Milczarek and Cathy Gannon are the two other female jockeys currently riding in the UK who have come closest to following Turner's achievements. Hayley Turner's success has seen an enormous increase in the number of female apprentice jockeys riding in the UK in the second decade of the 21st century.
She became the first female rider to ride 100 UK Flat race winners during a calendar year (a huge achievement for any rider), when winning on 'Mullitovermaurice' at Wolverhampton on 30 December 2008. 2008 also saw Turner ride in over 900 races in the UK - one of only five riders to achieve the milestone that year.
The 2011 Racing season has so far seen Turner ride at least her second highest tally of winners, putting her on track to beat her personal record of 100 winners in a year. Also, in January, Turner had her first race-rides at the Meydan racecourse in Dubai, as part of the annual Dubai Racing Carnival. In July 2011 Hayley rode her first Group 1 winner, Dream Ahead in the July Cup at Newmarket, and repeated the trick the following month winning the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes on Margot Did during York racecourse's Ebor Meeting.
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Hayley Turner grew up in north Nottinghamshire. She has become one of racing's most popular and well regarded riders. Hayley is respected for her down-to-earth personality, no-nonsense, sensible race-riding and toughness in a finish.
Hayley's first ride in public was aboard Markellis at Southwell on 27 March 2000. Her first winning ride was on Generate at Pontefract on 4 June 2000. She rode her first Group winner on Lady Deauville in the Lando-Trophy in Germany on 16 November 2008.
Hayley has ridden winners for a great deal of trainers but is best known for her ongoing and successful association with Newmarket based Derby winning trainer Michael Bell, with whom she was apprenticed in 2005 when winning the Champion Apprentice title. She was joint Champion Apprentice with Saleem Golam with 44 winners in 2005. Since then she has silenced the doubters by bucking the trend of champion apprentices subsequently struggling with their careers by going from success to success. She was voted as Channel 4's Racing Personality for 2008.
High profile handicap wins in 2008 on Furnace at Chester and Ascot raised Hayley Turner into the higher echelons of the weighing room, as did wins on The Betchworth Kid.
In March 2009, Hayley was badly injured in an accident putting a horse through starting stalls on the Newmarket gallops, which initially threatened to sideline her for the rest of the year. She made some guest appearances as a pundit on Channel 4 Racing during this time. However, when fresh medical evidence allowed her to return to race-riding in mid-summer she was instantly back to riding successfully. Hayley ended the year on 60 winners, her second highest figure despite missing much of the season.
The 2010 Flat racing year continued to be successful for Hayley; highlights included a first Group 1 ride on Barshiba in the Nassau Stakes at Glorious Goodwood, and winning the Group 2 Lancashire Oaks on the same horse at Haydock a month earlier; and a successful partnership with classy two year old Margot Did, which included two winners and second places in two Group 3s and a Group 2.
On 9 July 2011, she rode her first Group 1 winner in the July Cup, on the David Simock trained Dream Ahead. This also represented the first-ever woman to ride a group 1 winner outright; Alex Greaves having previously head-deated in the Nunthorpe Stakes. Turner followed up in August 2011 with a second Group 1 success, on board Margot Did in the Nunthorpe Stakes at York.
Hayley Turner is often regarded as the "pin-up girl" of UK horseracing, and has been frequently featured by daily newspapers as well as being chosen as the face of media campaigns within the sport. However Turner generally shuns the role of 'attractive girl', preferring to trade on her craft in the saddle.
Turner is like many UK Flat jockeys based in Newmarket, Suffolk, also the base of her main employer Michael Bell.
Hayley is also one of few top class sportsmen or women, who admit to suffering from Coeliac Disease.
Hayley Turner is an active and popular Twitter user. During the early years of Hayley's career a popular website and racing forum was devoted to her. It subsequently closed, however of 2011 a new, small unofficial fansite has opened at http://www.hayleyturner.com.
Per calendar year