‘Women will show they are just as good’
A new campaign tells the racing public to ignore the gender of a jockey, reports Alan Tyers
Who do you see riding a horse in the picture to the right? Is it Hollie Doyle, the female jockey? Or is it Hollie Doyle, the jockey? A campaign by Great British Racing launched yesterday urges professionals and public alike to think of competitors who happen to be female as no more or less than “just jockeys”.
“I think the tide is turning in the sport,” said Doyle, who rode 116 winners last year. “When I started, there were only a few women in the weighing room, but now there are more and more. Gender should not come into it: if women are given the opportunity they are just as good as men.”
The stats back Doyle up: in 2015, women rode 455 winners across National Hunt and flat; last year, that was up to 801.
The Women In Racing organisation, though, notes that while 70 per cent of youngsters coming into the sport are female, only 14 per cent of rides are going to women jockeys. And there is a further, dramatic, funnel when it comes to the opportunities to ride in the sport’s elite, most lucrative Group One races.
The trainer Amy Murphy said: “The game is changing quickly, more women are applying for apprentice licences [up 26 per cent in five years], and at my yard we are flexible with women riders, for instance I’ve got a couple of mothers who ride out for me later in the morning to fit in with childcare.
“I have never had a problem with my owners when I have put a woman rider on. Also, if a woman is naturally lighter then that can be turned to their advantage: the worst is when a jockey has been in the sauna all day to lose five pounds, you know they are not physically or mentally right. We just want to give people opportunities.”
Racing is right to celebrate, and perhaps could shout louder, about the fact that it is one of the few sports where men and women compete toe-to-toe in the same events.
Also this week, the sport marks International Women’s Day with a mixed card at Southwell where all riders in the eight races will be female. Are this showcase and the Just Jockeys campaign a contradiction? “International Women’s Day doesn’t mean a lot to me: you spend your life trying to be on a level playing field,” said Murphy. “But it is a good chance for riders to impress, maybe make a connection with a trainer and so get more chances.”
Doyle agreed: “It’s a platform to advertise the sport, and it’s not that often a female jockey can get that many rides on the same day. So it’s a good showcase.” They might well be correct to stress how far the sport has come for female riders.
Gee Bradburne (nee Armytage) rode two winners at the Cheltenham Festival in 1987, but she recalled facilities around the country as distinctly primitive in those days.
“There were not many girl riders at all, and we’d be stuck out in a caravan miles from the weighing room. There might be a basin or something but a working shower or anything to eat or drink, forget it. And it was a very lonely existence: you came in from the race and that was the end of it.
“The boys in the weighing room would have a replay, but we never saw that, so no feedback from the other jockeys, we missed out on the banter. You were just left with your own thoughts, in your own room 300 yards away.”
Bradburne recalled Princess Anne coming to ride at Worcester on one occasion and “suddenly they’d put a red carpet in there and it was all tinkered up, lots of nice smelly things put out, and all the food and drink you wanted. We never saw that again.”
Royal appearances notwithstanding, the consensus in 2020 is that facilities for female riders have improved massively but that there is still a way to go. And perhaps in another few years neither the Just Jockeys campaign nor an all-female card will be needed.
Doyle summed it up: “In 10 years time hopefully it is even better, but at the moment, we are moving towards something.”