Striving to ride

Women are still vastly underrepresented in the world of horseracing

Photo by Jeff Griffith on Unsplash

Striving to ride

Women are still vastly underrepresented in the world of horse racing

It was the stuff of movies, the kind of thing that doesn’t happen in real life. Except that it did. The horse who seemed like a dud was running dead last, and then in the final stretch he began to move up, and he kept moving and moving and moving.

Golden Tempo didn’t just move into first place; he streaked past the other horses and made the finish look effortless. What a great way to be introduced to the Kentucky Derby and horse racing.

That wasn’t all. The horse and his jockey, José Ortiz, were stars in that moment, but history had just been made. Golden Tempo’s trainer, Cherie DeVaux, was the first female to have a winning horse in the Derby’s 152-year history.

Now, I like horses. As a kid, I got to ride a lot, thanks to Brenda, a neighbor who owned a pair of horses—Daisy and Davey--and invited me along many times. I remember reading about Secretariat and Seattle Slew, two Triple Crown winners in the 1970s, but I never watched those events. Instead, I was probably off riding Daisy or Davey.

This spring, I vacationed with six women and on Derby Day, friend Jane cajoled us into watching and placing pretend bets on the horses. Unfortunately, none of us picked Golden Tempo. I was intrigued by all of it.

Horse racing is a strange world to the uninitiated, and sometimes the uninitiated notice things that those familiar no longer see. Sort of like children who blurt out an uncomfortable truth. How could it be that in 152 years of the Derby no other female trainer had a winning horse?

Well, because there are few female trainers, for one thing. In the history of the Derby, fewer than 20 women have been trainers of starting horses. In 2017, Thoroughbred Racing Commentary reported that, of the top 500 trainers in the world, exactly 25 were women. 25! That’s Two-Five! Ridiculous!

I’m struggling to understand what’s so threatening about a woman training a race horse. Sure, this sport is an expensive one, to say the least, but financial barriers for women seem to be falling faster than the old boys’ club determined to keep the fair sex standing on the sidelines in pretty hats.

Besides, the sexism doesn’t end there. I noticed that all of the jockeys were male.

In the three events that make up the Triple Crown (Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes), no female jockey raced in any of those events this year.

Until 1986, US racing boards were under no obligation to award licenses to female jockeys. Sometimes it takes a lawsuit, and in this case, that’s what happened. So racing boards now comply with the law, but the racing establishment doesn’t have to like it, and it seems that they don’t. Today, in the top levels of racing, male jockeys outnumber females by 50 to 1.

In the history of the Kentucky Derby, only six female jockeys have had the honor of appearing in that race. Rider Rosie Napravnik rode the Derby in 2011, 2013, and 2014, a rare feat. Napravnik also rode in the Preakness the same year, which was the last time a female jockey appeared there.

In the Belmont Stakes, only two females have ever ridden, and Napravnik was one of the two. In 2013, she made her second appearance in the Belmont, and no other female jockey has ridden since.

The dearth of female jockeys is inverse to the numbers in recreational horse riding, where women outnumber men at least three to one. It’s as though there’s an unspoken rule that women can and should go for trail rides but that’s it.

And if they enter the racing world, they are more than welcome to muck out the stalls; but if they aspire to ride in the big time, it will be a long, hard road.

One female jockey, B.J. Rubin, who preceded Napravnik, was barred from entering the horse barns at the tracks. She was told she was “bad luck.” The males-only jockey club pushed her out completely, threatening to close the track if Rubin was allowed to ride.

Frozen out, she went to the Bahamas to race until the boycott against her dissolved.

When Napravnik started racing, she went by the name A.R. Napravnik to hide her gender. She probably took her cue from Rubin. On the track, though, things were still rough. She told “60 Minutes” in 2013 that male jockeys would push her against the rails or wedge her between two horses. Still, she persisted.

And let’s talk about weight. All jockeys must make weight in order to race. In the Triple Crown, jockeys may weigh no more than 118 pounds. That fact alone should, ahem, tip the scales in favor of women, who typically weigh less than males.

In an article published in “Socius” in 2017, the authors argue that since men have more muscle mass and muscle weighs more, it’s more challenging for male jockeys to make weight.

They resort to extreme methods of cutting weight: starvation, dehydration, purging, pills, all unhealthy behaviors.* Typically, then, because they must be so weight-conscious, many male jockeys are underweight, which puts their long-term health at risk.

Men’s higher muscle mass has been the standard argument for why women couldn’t or shouldn’t be jockeys. They argue that women wouldn’t be strong enough. But strength is not the only measure by which a jockey can succeed.

In that “60 Minutes” interview, Napravnik’s sister, Jazz, said, “I think if strength is what men have to their advantage, I think women would have finesse.” Jazz talked about her sister’s “special connection” with the horses, and her track record proved that.

Horse racing is unusual because male and female jockeys compete side-by-side, rather than in sex-segregated categories. This goes a long way to explain the continued dearth of women at the highest echelons of the sport. When given a level playing field, statistics show that female jockeys outperform males.

And there it is: Female jockeys are too much of a threat. At some level, the horse racing establishment knows this, of course, but sexism is gonna sexism as long as it can.

Someday, perhaps a woman will burst on the racing scene as the true badass she is, whispering her magic into her mount’s ear and clinching all three titles of the crown. It’ll be the stuff of movies.

For now, though, we can celebrate that Cherie DeVaux’s Golden Tempo won the Belmont Stakes on June 6, once again coming from dead last and streaking ahead to win by one and one-quarter lengths.

Golden Tempo was again ridden by José Ortiz, who spoke about the horse in a way that made me think that Oritz knew the secret of finesse, too. It’s not just the province of women, after all. Then why isn’t the track big enough for everyone?

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*This is not to say that female jockeys are immune from some of the same weight-conscious concerns, but the issues tend to be more pronounced for men.