Nick Townsend speaks to Tom Marquand, a rider making waves in Europe and Australia

At times race-riding can be a brutal game; one punctuated with episodes of blood-staunching, fracture repairs and dislocation corrections. Just ask Tom Marquand. In the first few months of this year alone the 25-year-old has required surgery on his shoulder after a fall in Australia and been kicked by a rival’s horse at Newmarket, leaving him with what he dismisses as “a hole in my elbow”. In addition, he witnessed his jockey wife Hollie Doyle suffer a horrific-looking fall at Wolverhampton. She escaped with ...