‘Horses don’t know if you are a boy or a girl’
Jim White reports on the first International Women’s Day all-female meeting at Southwell
After she had won her second race of the first International Women’s Day all-female race meeting here, Bryony Frost was making her way back to the weighing room, grinning widely. “It’s no different,” she said, when asked if the atmosphere was distinct from a normal day in the saddle. “I’m still coming here to win races. It’s still the same craic. Just a bit quieter without the lads in there.”
As a mark of her work, her face was splattered with mud, churned up on a course soaked over the past week by rain. She had over her shoulder a bag full of cosmetics and vouchers for free entry to a local spa with which she had just been presented as a prize for victory. In truth, she looked more in need of soap and water. Not that she was complaining about her booty. It was the result of a win, and she always likes those whatever the setting.
“I’ve always said if you’re a boy or a girl, your horse doesn’t know. It’s the way you ride,” she said. “I don’t want special concessions. What I believe is, it doesn’t matter who you are, if you’re good enough you’ll go somewhere.”
And Frost is certainly going somewhere. Last March, she became the first woman to ride a Grade One winner at the Cheltenham Festival when Frodon took the Ryanair Chase. She is as in demand as any male rider. Watching her steer her horse along the finishing straight here, she looked a rider in complete control.
“Gooo on Bryony,” a group of Barbour-clad women were yelling as she eased over the finish line.
Riders such as Frost and Hollie Doyle are at the vanguard of a surge of women jockeys. Doyle broke the record of the number of winners by a female rider in a season at Southwell in December. And the idea of an all-female card to mark International Women’s Day was to point up their arrival at the top.
“We’ve been working on it since late last year,” said Paul Barker, the clerk of the course at Southwell. “The British Horseracing Authority had the great idea to have a mix of Flat and hurdles, to allow the female jockeys of both disciplines to be showcased. With our all-weather track alongside the grass, we were able to accommodate both. More female riders is great for the sport. It’s expanded our reach enormously. You only have to look at how many families are here.”
And, indeed, dotted through the grandstands were plenty of young girls. But for all of Frost and Doyle’s successes, the statistics do not suggest a female takeover is imminent. While more than 50 per cent of the new students entering race school are female, women accounted for just one per cent of the riders in Group One races last year. Meanwhile, half of the country’s racehorse trainers did not use a woman rider last year.
Only one per cent of the riders in Group One races were women last year
“There’s a big pool of female jockeys at the grass roots, you usually find at point-to-point there are more female riders,” said Rose Grissell, head of diversity and inclusion at the BHA. “But at the top, there is a way to go. At the current rate of increase in female participation, it will be 50 years before we achieve equality on the Flat, 100 years before jump racing is equal. We are dedicated to accelerating that progress. That’s why today is important.”
Even so, there was some concern that such an initiative might be regarded as tokenism. In France, in an attempt to accelerate female success, women riders have been gifted some weight advantages. It was a move rejected in England, where most of the riders prefer to describe themselves as simply jockeys rather than female jockeys.
“In terms of technique, there is no difference between male and female riders: watching from a distance, you wouldn’t know,” said Barker. He had a point: the women looked as controlled as any men as they piled past the grandstand. Grissell went so far as to suggest that the diminutive Doyle may have a physical advantage over her male counterparts.
“Because she’s so tiny, she can eat what she likes and do plenty of work in the gym on her strength and conditioning,” she said. “I’d prefer a Hollie Doyle, fit and firing, than a male jockey, half-starved in the attempt to make the weight.”
Not that skill and application are always enough in a sport as capricious as racing. Attempting to win her third race of the afternoon, Frost was unseated at the first fence, falling face first into the churned-up turf. Suddenly the idea of spending the rest of the afternoon in the nearby spa must have looked a lot more appealing.