It’s only good fortune that allows me to drive up East Avenue every day, with the Fasig-Tipton stalls on my right and the Oklahoma track on my left … I can’t really see much of it because we’ve had some pretty good snow lately … but both scenes remind me that the summer will be here sometime and with it the Thoroughbreds. And female jockeys, of which there are so few.
If you google “female jockeys” you’ll come up with around 76,000 web sites (including Jockey @ JCPenny and the “Single Ukrainian Girls” sites) and you’ll find that the female jockeys have their own site: femalejockeys.com.
It’s always interested me that so many of the exercise riders are women but women still have to work so hard for a mount and a race. Any mount, any race. “Just give me a shot, give me a chance.” Exercise riders and pony girls get their bodies pounded by riding every day; why are they good enough to be trusted with million dollar horses in the morning but not in the afternoon? “I just want a chance to show you what I can do in a race”.
Julie Krone and Diane Crump are the first two names that come to mind here: as far as anyone can tell Diane was the first woman to ride a pari-mutuel race in North America (1969) and Julie, all 4-10 and 100 pounds of her rode in the 1991 Belmont Stakes and went on to win 81 million dollars in purse money in her 18 years as a professional. She’s the only female jockey in the Racing Hall of Fame.
There are a few dozen female jockeys who race at some of the minor flat tracks across the US but none yet in the Big Time.
But the female jockeys who impress most impress me are the jump riders. Anyone who has seen horses jump over timber, fences and hedges, especially the 18 jumps at the Grand National knows how precarious is the rider’s balance, with absolute faith (and hope) in their horse. A fall from those heights … well, best not to think about it.
Danielle Hodson, 33, has won more than 100 sanctioned steeplechase races and obviously holds her own with the 25 or so male jump riders. “I’ve never had a problem being a woman jockey, and I’ve never felt like a minority in steeplechasing. I believe women in this sport are treated as well as men.” That said, it was impossible to find sources that could (can) name any other significant female jump riders. There are some apprentice riders but they don’t get many rides.
And why is that? As I’m neither an owner nor a trainer I can’t answer. But each time I see the exercise riders breezing their horses around Oklahoma my mind hears the plea, “Just give me a chance. I’ll show you.”
Thank you so much for taking up the cause of women who are jockeys, Mr. Peake. The majority of exercise riders (at least in Saratoga) are women. (Interestingly enough, many exercise riders weigh a great deal more than a jock is allowed to weigh to race–some up to 30 pounds more, so that nukes any prospects for riding.) When I think of muscles, I think of Lorna, who rides for Pletcher. I doubt that she weighs anywhere near 120, but she’s a solid wall of muscle, amazing and brilliant rider. Exercise riders can ride for many years, whereas jockeys must start really quite young, and have an early retirement age. But yep, most exercise riders are women, which I find to be a very cool thing.
I want to point out just one item: you wrote that women do race at the smaller tracks, but none yet in the Big Time. I’m not sure if you mean major stakes races (they do/have), or the premier tracks like Saratoga and Belmont.
I would drop a few names onto the screen here, women who race at Saratoga, Belmont, Woodbine, California: Maylan Studart. Chantal Sutherland. Jackie Davis. Inez Karlsson. (Featured on a back issue of “Galopp Magasinet,” a great Swedish horse racing magazine. She’s originally from Sweden, but rides the Chicago circuit a great deal.) There were several women who raced at Saratoga last year, thank God.
I’m living for the day when the phrase, “female jockey” is no longer used, and athletes who ride horses are called simply, “jockeys.” No one refers to “male jockeys.” When language catches up with reality–that’s when the tide will turn, and the Old Boys’ Club will finally die out. (This problem occurs mostly in the US, the least-enlightened racing community in the world regarding female professionals and fillies/mares.) I mean…how many rich, old, White men ARE there? They can’t live forever, can they? Ha! [But seriously, folks, it happens that at this moment, I’m working with/for some really wonderful men. Most of them not from the US, coincidentally. (Grin.)]
Anyway, thank you for approaching this topic, truly I appreciate it. I don’t tell anyone that I’m a “female writer,” I’m just a writer. Hopefully the day will come soon when the great Julie Krone is joined in the Racing Hall of Fame by scores of other people who happen to be packin’ girly parts.
😉
P.S. Another day to which I look forward: when racing realizes that it needs a Commission, and a Commissioner–and it should be the great, egalitarian Leroy Jolley. Leroy is SO tuned in to the contributions of women to racing, he’s a wise man, and God knows–he knows more about racing than just about anyone on the planet.