jonathan powell
Jonathan Powell catches up with woman jockey Josephine Gordon
Interview with dynamic young woman jockey Josephine Gordon
Josephine Gordon’s first winner on Chester’slittlegem at Bath in September, 2013,was followed by a drought of such lengthy proportions that she wondered if she had a future in racing.
It would be 21 months before the young girl from the West Country managed to win a race again and by then she was beset by so many doubts she was planning to move abroad in a last ditch attempt to revive her career.
Yet time spent by apprentices riding moderate horses in modest races in the early stages of their development is seldom wasted.The late,great Pat Eddery ran up a total of almost 60 losing rides before his canny boss Frenchie Nicholson thought he was ready to step up on a horse called Alvaro trained by Michael Pope.
In the space of a few weeks Eddery enjoyed a sequence of victories on Alvaro which set the boy on the way to a glittering career.
The many months that Josephine Gordon spent waiting for a second winner may have left her in despair at times but the strength of character she showed then was an early indication of the toughness of spirit she needed on her way to being crowned Stobart Champion Apprentice at the age of 23 last season, a feat that brought a handy bonus in the shape of a cheque for £5,000 from the sponsor.
She is only the third woman to claim the apprentice title following Hayley Turner (2005) and Amy Ryan (2012).
Flat racing is an unforgiving sport. Too many fine apprentices quickly fade away after they ride out their claim as trainers, who once employed them,turn to the next up and coming youngster who can use a valuable weight allowance.
Not Josephine who reached her half century of winners for the year atYork on the eve of Royal Ascot on Arabian Blue in the colours of Godolphin. The horse is trained by Saeed bun Suroor who has provided her with a number of winners already and booked her for Dream Castle at the Royal meeting where she also rode Gymnast for John Gosden in the Sandringham Handicap. No wonder she said she was over the moon. In addition Josephine rides regularly for the upwardly mobile Hugo Palmer.
These are heady days for someone who has more than earned her chance against the best.There have been many pathfinders going back to Gay Kelleway who is still the only female to ride a winner at Royal Ascot 30 years ago on Sprowston
Boy in the marathon Queen Alexandra Stakes.
It is not an exaggeration to suggest that life for girls in the saddle back then was much tougher than today. Gay was more than up for the challenge and in the shape of Sprowston Boy she had a willing partner.
I remember her telling me, “My dad Paul always said I was ten years ahead of my time.I was so confident that Sprowston Boy would stay all day that I kicked on in front a mile from home at Swinley Bottom.
“It was uphill all the way from there. I kept kicking, he kept finding for me and when I looked round I couldn’t believe how far we were clear.”
At the line Sprowston Boy and his eager jockey had made history by eight lengths. No one was prouder than Paul Kelleway,a tough as teak jump jockey before switching to training at Newmarket with notable results.
With so many women jockeys now holding a licence it was a shock to discover that only one, Ana O’Brien, was entrusted with a ride at Royal Ascot 12 months ago on the 50-1 outsider Birthplace for her brother Joseph O’Brien in the Queen’s Vase.
So you have to sit up and take notice when Josephine is being employed by some of the best trainers in the business.
There is little doubt that she has what it takes to become the most successful female jockey this country has ever seen. Strong, determined, focused, levelheaded and with a keen racing brain,she remains her own fiercest critic as she continues her relentless pursuit of success.
Gordon concedes that the switch to Newmarket at the end of her apprenticeship to join forces with Hugo Palmer was the launching pad for the latest exciting chapter of her journey towards the top.
She says, “Hugo is already a leading trainer and will be champion one day and the fact that he rang and asked me to work for him filled me with confidence.
“Hayley Turner has proved that girls can get up there and that has definitely filled us girl riders with more confidence.
“Although when my agent Phil Shea told me early last season that we’d go for the apprentice title I laughed in his face.
“I don’t think I am treated any different by owners, trainers or other jockeys. I want to be in the top ten jockeys, not the top ten female jockeys.So you’ve just got to be thick-skinned, work hard and stand your ground.”
In a recent interview in the Racing Post Gordon paid a generous tribute to her mentor Stan Moore, the genial Lambourn trained who revived her faltering career and gave her umpteen chances to show what she could do.
She admits that when she joined Moore she was close to giving up and maybe moving abroad, possibly America, after that frustratingly barren spell of 21 months following her first winner.
“I was sick of it before I joined Stan at the age of 20.For a while I thought I was hopeless but I rang him asking if he was looking for an apprentice and luckily he was.
“Stan was very good to me and within a week of getting my licence he was putting me on the majority of his runners which was obviously a big confidence boost. I wasn’t just riding once a month, it was once a week and he was the one who gave me my second winner.
“Stan would never tell me off. He’d always give me constructive criticism whether I’d had a winner or finished last.
“He also helped me in the office every day after I’d ridden out in the mornings. Between lots he’d sit down, look at what I’d done and tell me what I could have
Hayley Turner has proved that girls can get up there and that has definitely filled us girl riders with more confidence
done, all for my own benefit.
“I rode a lot of his two-year-olds first time out and learned loads from having to hold them together.
“I didn’t imagine I’d win the title though I wanted to win it. And when I did I couldn’t believe it.The plan then became to look for better rides this year with a target of 100 winners.
“Once I told Stan I was moving to Newmarket he was over the moon for me. He has always wanted what was best for me which is good to have in a boss.”
She showed judgement beyond her years in choosing to leave the security of her job with Moore to take up offers from bigger yards in Newmarket,most notably Hugo Palmer’s.
She explains,“As much as I loved Stan I needed to take the next step forward and he was so happy for me because it was a brilliant opportunity.”
Josephine suggests,“The fact that it has taken me so long to get here has worked out for the best for me.
“I thought that when I went into racing it would be easy but I found out the hard way that it isn’t.
“Plenty of people were saying I’d struggle when I lost my claim and though it is still early days I couldn’t ask for it to be going any better really.
“Now I feel that I am ready and prepared mentally for this next step. I’ve just got to make sure that I am always at my best.”
Hayley Turner and Cathy Gannon have been the role models for Josephine Gordon.Others like Alex Greaves,Joanna Morgan, Lisa Jones and Kirsty Milczarek have all played their part, too, in the relentless advance of female jockeys.
For the greatest inspiration of all perhaps Josephine could do worse than study the incomparable record of Julie Krone, the sparky, pugnacious pint-sized jockey who turned the racing world on its head in America with upwards of 3,700 winners.
I once tracked down Julie to Meadowlands in New Jersey and was startled to find she was so short and sleight, at 4ft 10ins and weighing 7st that I wondered, briefly,if she could hold a runaway bicycle, let alone a charging thoroughbred.
She soon put me straight. Looking me squarely in the eye she declared, “Over here they don’t think of me as a girl and I don’t go out thinking I am competing against men.This is a job we do together.
“The question of gender has always been someone else’s problem, not mine.
“I don’t feel pressure.I’m blessed with a lot of energy and enjoy the excitement, the thrill and anticipation.
“In the early days I use to sit in the shower and cry, banging my head and trying to drown myself thinking I am better than these guys. It was never me failing or messing up.At first I was just not getting the opportunities.”
Krone’s agent Snake Cooper added, “She is part horse, that is what some people say. She really likes trying to get into a horse’s mind.
“Julie is iron, rock solid, the first and only girl. In a race you cannot tell she is a girl against the others.”
He told a story of a rival jockey Miguel Rujano slashing Julie Krone across the ear in a race.Afterwards she knocked him off the scales in retaliation. From an early stage she knew she had to stand her ground.
For the final word I turned again to Gay Kelleway who faced her share of prejudice as a jockey.
Gay is in no doubt as she says, “Josephine has the whole package in my book. She has worked her way through from a small yard.
“John Gosden and Saeed know she can ride. She has strength in her legs and more bottle then most of the lads.”
rival jockey Miguel Rujano slashed Julie Krone across the ear in a race. Afterwards she knocked him off the scales