Desert strike that earned a talented rider global recognition

It is not that James Doyle was an unknown rider at the turn of the decade, far from it, but having struggled to build on a winner-fuelled whirlwind apprenticeship, it appeared his boat had perhaps set sail with him stuck in traffic on his way to an evening meeting at Wolverhampton.

Riding was a short-term project for Doyle in the beginning. Standing tall at 5ft 10ins he always felt he was on borrowed time and, having left school at 8st 4lb, the only plan was to get as many winners as possible before the scales fell out of kilter.

He did just that, bagging 73 successes in 2006 and missing out on the apprentice title by only two short-heads to Stevie Donohoe and Adam Kirby in what history now tells us was one of the classiest three-way finishes that competition has produced.