Op Ed: Women Can Be First Among Equals

In Newmarket, the first day of February traditionally heralds a metaphorical shrugging-off of the winter wraps as the grass canter opens on Warren Hill and a countdown to the start of the Flat turf season can begin in earnest.

From my office in a draughty hayloft directly above the stable in which the 1946 2000 Guineas winner Happy Knight once munched his hay, I have a view across the roof of Waitrose to the looming hill that forms the unofficial centre point of Newmarket's training grounds. My daily mood often depends largely on whether it is bathed in sunshine or shrouded in gloomy clouds. Judging by today's outlook, there'll be no actual shrugging-off for a while yet.

This particularly wet and windy winter has been taking its toll on man, woman and beast but there have been one or two bright spots, and for those of us glued to all-weather and National Hunt racing on TV, the current good run of Nicola Currie and Hollie Doyle in the former and Bryony Frost and Lizzie Kelly in the latter has been a source of continued enjoyment over the last few weeks.

That the aforementioned all happen to be female should of course be of no consequence. The more important link between the quartet is that they are all excellent riders, and they are not the only women on the scene under both codes who are worth following. In Britain and Ireland, we can add the outstanding Josephine Gordon and the woman who has made arguably the biggest breakthrough to date, Hayley Turner. Then there's Georgia Cox, Shelley Birkett, Sammy Jo Bell, Ana O'Brien, Gemma Tutty, Katie Walsh, Nina Carberry, Lisa O'Neill, Kate Harrington. The list goes on, perhaps not for long enough, but it is increasing.

The arrival in my inbox this week of a BHA press release entitled 'Female jockeys as good as males' was greeted initially with a silent, “Well, duh!”

As someone whose introduction to racing came through an initial love of anything equine followed by a childhood devotion to show jumping and eventing, it would never have crossed my mind that women weren't as good as men in the saddle (or in countless other areas). In other equestrian sports, they have competed on equal terms for generations.

Racing has been woefully behind the times on this but it is now starting to catch up, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Turner, Gordon, Currie and co.

A response to a BHA tweet on the matter from trainer Stuart Williams hit the nail on the head: “Let us just call them jockeys then, absolutely no reason to distinguish them by gender, no other equine discipline does this.”

Williams currently employs another rising apprentice, Milly Naseb, and is clearly one of a growing number of trainers who have no problem booking a female rider. But that number needs to grow faster.

The study conducted by Thoroughbred Horseracing Industries MBA graduate Vanessa Cashmore and released by the BHA takes into account 14 years of data and, allowing for the quality of horses ridden, comes to the conclusion, which should have been fairly obvious to all, that female jockeys are just as good as their male counterparts. The difference is that they are given far fewer opportunities and are greatly outnumbered by men in the weighing-room.

In Britain, only 11.3% of licenced jockeys are female, and over the course of the study only 5.2% of the rides went to females. More telling was the fact that the distribution was far from even in race profile, with females accounting for 1.1% of rides in Class 1 Flat races, and 10% and 9.3% in Class 6 and 7 races respectively. It's reasonable to believe that in another 14 years those percentages will be significantly higher and to hope that we see more women riding on the big days.

A closer look at the case of five-pound claimer Nicola Currie, who is currently one of the most talked-about jockeys in Britain and perhaps the only one to emerge from the small Scottish Isle of Arran, is encouraging in this regard. In January alone, Currie, one of three apprentices employed by Richard Hughes, rode for 26 different trainers. In the last few months she's got the better of Ryan Moore, Frankie Dettori and Adam Kirby in close finishes, giving lie to the lazy excuse so often dragged up that female jockeys simply aren't strong enough.

I'm not suggesting that she's better than any of the experienced trio mentioned but Currie, whose particular gift seems to be in the way she settles horses, is clearly an extremely promising jockey who, like Turner and Gordon before her, is proving that, given the chances, a gifted rider will deliver regardless of gender. Good race-riding is rarely about brute force, rather an almost indefinable combination of balance, sensitivity, bravery and timing.

Josephine Gordon's champion apprentice title of 2016 was followed by her appointment to Hugo Palmer's stable, which provided almost a third of her tally of 106 winners in 2017, not to mention her first Group win. She subsequently finished in 11^th position in the jockeys' championship and riding nine winners for Godolphin and Saeed Bin Suroor from just 31 starts will have done her profile no harm. For the hard-working Gordon, opportunity is now knocking loudly, and only two other jockeys took more rides than her last year.

Opportunity is not afforded to every female rider, however, nor indeed to many male jockeys or plenty of small trainers for that matter.

Responding to the study, the BHA's Chief Executive Nick Rust has emphasised his organisation's desire to ensure that the gender gap in the weighing-room is reduced and said, “Understanding why there are fewer female jockeys than male, and why those jockeys get fewer rides than the men – in particular in higher-profile races – is something that we are determined to address.”

The BHA has not signaled any intention of following France Galop's introduction of a weight allowance for female jockeys, a measure which certainly has increased their chances of being booked for rides but does little to advance the level terms argument.

Rust has also spoken of his belief that we will see a female crowned champion jockey before too long, and clearly the opportunities, along with the inspiration to others, are steadily improving. The BHA boss will be laughed out of town by some but I'm a fellow believer. And when it happens, let's not pat her on the back for being a woman, for as the data shows, it's not about being male or female, it's about being a damn fine jockey.