Mike Smith will ride Justify for a shot at the Triple Crown in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes. He’ll compete against nine other horse/jockey combinations —…
In interviews with NBC , five female jockeys described what they say is a long and persistent history of gender discrimination in the sport. Some say their careers have been deterred by sexual harassment and bullying.Mike Smith will ride Justify for a shot at the Triple Crown in Saturday’s Belmont Stakes . He’ll compete against nine other horse/jockey combinations -- and all nine other jockeys will be men.
Murray and three other jockeys interviewed for this article said they didn't want to name the men who have harassed them or the tracks where the harassment occurred for fear of losing work. For the same reason, they never filed official complaints. Horse racing has always been a male-dominated sport. Women could not compete until 1968, when Kathy Kusner sued the Maryland Racing Commission for a jockey license.
Not every trainer thinks that way. Women in North America rode less often, getting a 10.2 percent of race starts and winning just 7.5 percent of prize money in 2017, according to analysis from , an associate professor of public policy, sociology, statistics and data at the University of Texas, Austin, who looked at data from Equibase, the thoroughbred industry's official database. Those percentages have declined by two to three points since 2000, Von Hippel said.
“I literally walked into barns just to introduce myself and trainers would say, 'You can keep walking, we don’t use girl jockeys in this barn,'” said Patrick, who now attends law school at the University of Kentucky. “I would try to get an agent, but when I called agents they would say the trainers they work with don’t use girl jockeys.”
“It’s behind like 50 years on the race track in terms of the treatment of women. It’s ridiculous,” said Murray, who started racing at 17. Murray will talk about her experiences but will not name names for fear of being blackballed. Filing a complaint to track stewards, Murray and others said, is not taken seriously and could lead to retaliation. They say the harassment takes focus away from their jobs and creates an unsafe working environment.
Eventually, Turner took out a restraining order against Manrrique-Guerrero, but she was still pitted against him in races, she said. “That’s serious. They should never feel like they shouldn’t complain because they’re the only female rider,” Cathey said. Jockey Julie Burke, who moved to the U.S. from Ireland two years ago, said a male jockey hazed her for weeks and punched her in the face after a race in 2017. They were both punished.
Katie Clawson Ramsey, 21, an exercise rider who retired from racing last year, said she was shocked to hear derogatory comments men made about women on the racetrack but she said it seemed acceptable for them to behave that way. She said older jockeys would offer to mentor young female riders, only to try to take advantage of them.
While some jockeys described widespread harassment and discrimination in the sport, others said they haven’t experienced it. “It’s not going out and playing ball,” said Broussard, who’s a single mom to a 3-year-old son. “A lot of people get killed, they get hurt. You have to be willing to take that and mentally prepare yourself.”
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