Talking Horses: Hollie Doyle and Tom Marquand are a champion couple

For only the third time since racing resumed at the start of June, both Hollie Doyle and Tom Marquand had a day off on Sunday and the timing could not have been better after the couple rode the winners of four of the six races on British Champions Day at Ascot, including a Group One winner apiece.

“Today is the first day of no Flat racing in a very long time, so we’re just chilling out and taking advantage of that,” Doyle said on Sunday. “I would have been pleased just for all the horses to run well, so to ride two winners was brilliant.

Related: Racing's golden couple Doyle and Marquand dominate Champions Day

“Trueshan [in the Long Distance Cup] was very impressive and to get off to a start like that fills you with plenty of confidence for the rest of the day. I didn’t think Glen Shiel [Doyle’s first Group One winner] had won [the Champions Sprint] so it was a big shock when he was called the winner.

“It was brilliant for Tom to win the Champion Stakes, especially on Addeybb, who has been such a flag bearer for Tom.”

Marquand, 22, and Doyle, 24, first met as teenagers on the West Country pony racing circuit and now sit third and fourth respectively in the flat jockeys’ title race with 102 and 85 winners. In 2020 as a whole, however, the placings are reversed, as Doyle has 118 wins – breaking her own record total for a female rider in a calendar year – while Marquand has 112.

Pontefract: 12.45 Out The Hat 1.15 Coul Cat 1.45 The Rosstafarian (nap) 2.20 Stag Horn 2.50 Awake My Soul 3.20 Starter For Ten 3.50 Round The Island 4.20 Jill Rose

Windsor: 1.00 Charles Le Brun 1.30 Good Listener 2.00 Rasheeq (nb) 2.30 Twpsyn 3.00 Mostawaa 3.30 Moxy Mares 4.00 Espresso Freddo 4.30 Lady Isabel

Plumpton: 2.10 Pisgah Pike 2.40 Hab Sab 3.10 Plenty Of Butty 3.40 Dr Sanderson 4.10 Vision Clear 4.40 Moans Cross 5.10 Our Rockstar

Wolverhampton: 4.25 Fulbeck Girl 5.00 Passing Nod 5.30 Sfumato 6.00 Machree 6.30 Seneca Chief 7.00 Charlie Fellowes 7.30 Atalanta Breeze 8.00 Red Gunner 8.30 Driving Force

“After racing, we got in the car and looked at each other and started laughing,” Marquand said. “It’s ridiculous really. You couldn’t have written the day any better. We are both so lucky to be in the position we’re in.

“Unintentionally, I guess, we’re pushing each other. We both have similar goals and things we want to achieve. We’ve got each other’s entire and full backing, which has to make a difference.”

For racing, the potential “crossover” value of Doyle and Marquand’s emergence at the forefront of the new generation of jockeys could be considerable. In addition to their talent and drive, both riders are also at ease in front of a microphone and seem more than ready to do what they can to promote the sport.

For years, racing has wondered how it will maintain a foothold in the public consciousness when Frankie Dettori, who is 50 in December, finally hangs up his boots. Saturday’s card at Ascot offered at least the hint of an answer.

Both riders, for instance, will go into next season sensing that a serious run at the championship might be an obvious next step in their careers. The media interest that a close contest for the title might generate is incalculable, and the likelihood is that they will be racing against each other at the top level for years to come.

While Doyle and Marquand put their stamp on Champions Day, the incumbent as the public face of racing endured a miserable afternoon. Dettori was beaten out of sight on Stradivarius in the opener, beat only two home aboard Mishriff in the Champion and threatened only briefly to take a hand in the QEII on Palace Pier, the odds-on favourite. The soft ground was an obvious excuse for Stradivarius and Palace Pier, though it did not stop Stradivarius winning the Ascot Gold Cup by 10 lengths in June. In his case, a tough race on similar ground at Longchamp two weeks ago had probably left its mark.

Palace Pier was not the first hot favourite to flounder on soft ground at Ascot in mid-October, nor will he be the last. On current evidence, the going will be good-to-soft or worse – sometimes much worse – on Champions Day in four years out of every five. The punters, of course, can factor that in – Stradivarius in particular was a big drifter on the day – and racegoers, as and when they return, can wrap up in their winter gear.

Related: Champions Day 2020: Addeybb powers to Ascot triumph – as it happened

Whether Champions Day will maintain its appeal for owners, though, is another question. Its timing between Arc weekend and the Breeders’ Cup makes it very difficult to run a horse at all three and with only a 20% chance of decent ground at Ascot, the percentage play will always be to take in Paris and the US and give Champions Day a miss.

It is Britain’s richest day at the races and a reliable source of great performances and stories. But whether a mid-October card can ever reliably attract the kind of fields that confer genuine “champion” status on its winners remains doubtful, to say the least.

Monday’s best bets

Seventeen lengths is an impressive winning margin however you cut it, but no guarantee of a repeat performance next time out – or even a win, for that matter. Just 20 horses have won a Flat race by 17 lengths or more over the last 10 seasons, and of the 15 that raced on the Flat next time up, only one came home in front. Three of those big-margin winners were juveniles, and all three were beaten next time.

Stats like that may or may not be behind a fairly dramatic drift in the price of Naamoos for the Listed Silver Tankard Stakes at Pontefract on Monday afternoon, but having taken the trouble to look up the numbers to explain why The Rosstafarian (1.45) might be a value bet to beat him, it seemed a shame to consign them to the cutting-room floor now that Hugo Palmer’s colt is 6-4 favourite from as big as 4-1 on Sunday afternoon.

Naamoos stormed 17 lengths clear in a novice at Beverley last month, but The Rosstafarian put up an impressive performance of his own to win at Salisbury 18 days ago, finishing four-and-a-quarter clear of his field in a very strong time for a debutant. He still looks like the one to be on, albeit at a much skinnier price than seemed likely yesterday.

On the same card, Stag Horn (2.20) should get Hollie Doyle up-and-running again after a rare day off to digest her Champions Day double, while at Windsor, Espresso Freddo (4.00) has more convincing form with cut in the ground than his main market rivals. A strong pace got the best out of Moxy Mares (3.30) last time and he should get that again today, while Dr Sanderson (3.40) and Machree (6.00) are the pick of the prices at Plumpton and Wolverhampton respectively.