Rise of women jockeys is inspirational, so let's find out why they're dying

[Chief Stipe]

Peter FitzSimons09:30, Sep 03 2019

 

RACING PHOTOS

Mikaela Claridge was tragically killed in a training accident last week.

OPINION: Before sun-up last Friday morning, the 22-year-old apprentice jockey Mikaela Claridge was riding her horse at Melbourne's Cranbourne Training Centre when she fell and was tragically killed.

At the Fannie Bay Racecourse in Darwin just the next afternoon, 32-year-old jockey Melanie Tyndall was riding her mount Restless in the third race of the afternoon when her horse appeared to clip the heels of one of the horses in front, became unbalanced, and Tyndall fell so badly she was pronounced dead at Royal Darwin Hospital a short time later. The Herald sends its deepest condolences to their families.

Yet the death of those two female jockeys in Australia in the space of two days last week also points to an appalling matrix. Despite the fact that women form a broad 30 per cent of the jockeying ranks, they now form a shocking 75 per cent of deaths among Australian jockeys from riding mishaps in the last 10 years – with nine women among 12 Australian jockey deaths in that time frame.

Is there an issue? Is this troubling statistic an anomaly, and in no way connected to the gender of the jockeys who fall? Or is there something in the female form which makes it more vulnerable to tragic consequences when engaged in bad falls?

I do not pretend to know and there appears to have been little work done in the field to find out, but my starting point from the racing people I have talked to is that it is a very sensitive subject, and a difficult one to navigate through. No one wants to go on the record.

GETTY IMAGES

Jockeys like Melbourne Cup winner Michelle Payne have proven that women riders don't lack ability.

On the one hand, there is no doubt the rise of female jockeys is an inspirational story. Up until 1979 it was illegal to be a female professional jockey in Australia. The first known person to get around this law was Wilhemena Smith who up Queensland way – around the turn of last century – lived and worked as a male licensed jockey and trainer, known as Bill "Girlie" Smith. Her actual gender was only discovered upon her death in 1975. Just four years later Pam O'Neill and Linda Jones broke through the racing barriers as proud females – rrrrracing now – and galloped away to glory. Since that time ever more females have flooded into the field and racing is now one of the only sports where males and female compete side by side on absolutely equal terms. And women are the frequent winners.

The most famous female jockey of the lot, Michelle Payne, won the Melbourne Cup in 2015 on Prince of Penzance, and a film on her life Ride Like a Girl, will have its international premiere this Sunday. The issue, thus, is not remotely the ability of female jockeys. They have proved themselves to be as good as the men if not better, time and again.

But on the other hand, when the death rates among women is so much greater than among men, there has of course been discussion in racing ranks on the subject. That chat, I am told, has not been lead by the women, as their inclination in this game is to neither ask for nor give quarter, and highlighting their mortality rate might be mistaken for weakness. Beyond that, the point is made that it is in the very nature of successful jockeys not to focus on the dangers of what they would do, as otherwise they would never race horses in the first place.

There are, nevertheless, some quiet theories that have been floated in racing ranks. One is that men, who often grow up in a much more rough and tumble environment than their sisters, learn how to more easily take a fall, which involves most fundamentally learning how to soften your impact by using your forearms to roll. (This was the case with one of my own sisters - when we were kids I noted how, instead of rolling, she would fall like a dropped pie.)

Another theory is that because men have more muscles around their already thicker necks, they are better able to withstand bad impacts on the most vulnerable part of their bodies in bad falls.

The answer? I don't have the first clue. But my starting point – heightened by the fact right now female apprentices in the racing industry are greater than 50 per cent is that it must be time for racing in Australia do some serious research and proceed from there. There is no appetite in racing and nor should there be, to go back to pre-1979 days and ban females from racing. But at least let female jockeys have a good understanding of the risks before they start and let the industry as a whole also look at ways of making them safer.

 

SMH

[Freda]

Good topic.

Can we look at the differences between the average male jockey,  and the average female one ?  bearing in mind that there are ALWAYS exceptions to any rule.

For starters, the women tend to be finer-boned and with lesser tendon/ligament strength ,  and also a different shape.

The body configuration has to have some bearing upon the way it hits the ground after a fall,  and bone density must also have a bearing on overall fragility or otherwise.

The ability to 'roll'  after a fall was discussed at the track only recently,  where the vests came in for some criticism.

They have improved since first introduced,  but have been held up by some people as a big cause of neck/head injuries because the wearer is unable to roll up as before,  but is hurled directly onto the ground - like a spear dive.

I do seem to recall,  that before vests were introduced,  one of the more common results of a fall [ among males ] was a broken collarbone,  where the girls seemed to hit the ground head-first.

Not sure if that was ever statistically indicated, but it certainly appeared to be the case.

[Freda]

I've been mulling this over all morning actually - safety for riding personnel is a very topical matter at the moment.

Remembering the work I used to do with my own apprentices,  one thing that struck me was how hard the girls found it to adopt a suitable position,  and also how they struggled early on to develop a suitable whip style - much more so than the guys.

The best female rider I was fortunate to work with had been a NZ champion gymnast before starting,  and had much more strength in her legs / quads...but it still took her ages to be able to keep her hips low when riding out a finish.   Other girls,  lacking this strength, found it near impossible to maintain a possie with shoulders higher than the hips.  It was just so hard keeping the knees bent for so long.

They would tend to ride with their backsides in the air - watch any race now and you will see some of the newer apprentices doing just that,  any interruption such as a check,  or clipped heels,  and there is only one place those girls will head;  nose first onto the deck.

[barryb]

Good topic and some great observations Pam.

[Chief Stipe]

If you listen to the behind the scenes video in the Michelle Payne topic it is mentioned how someone last name Patterson gave the actress who played Michelle 9 lessons and had her riding like a jockey for the film.  Had never ridden before!

[Newmarket]

Protesters will be out soon, ban women jockeys!! 

Article makes sense, its a rough n tumble sport, some of these young girls weigh nothing. 

[Freda]

1 hour ago, Chief Stipe said:

If you listen to the behind the scenes video in the Michelle Payne topic it is mentioned how someone last name Patterson gave the actress who played Michelle 9 lessons and had her riding like a jockey for the film.  Had never ridden before!

Hmmph.

Gosh, it must be easy.   9 lessons,  eh?

Think the poor girl from McKees had about half a dozen lessons,  obviously 3 short.

[Chief Stipe]

5 minutes ago, Freda said:

Hmmph.

Gosh, it must be easy.   9 lessons,  eh?

Think the poor girl from McKees had about half a dozen lessons,  obviously 3 short.

Apparently the chap doing the tutoring is a genius at it and is a legend in OZ.  I didn't intend to sound smart but with any educators there are very good ones and not so good ones.

Another quote was the horse trainer that trained the 36 ex racehorses up for the film felt it was easier to train the horses to be around people and handle all the filming paraphenalia than it was to train the 100 or so people to be around horses.

Which takes me to a long held opinion that there is a huge variation in horse breakers and early educators.  I note they don't have to be licensed.  Some horses turn up to race training with bad habits already.

[Freda]

True that.

[Freda]

Slightly off topic, but I recently read a book by a well known Australian horseman, where he stated that it has taken him forty years to learn lessons that a horse can pick up in five minutes.

[Chief Stipe]

I watched a Western Rider break a thoroughbred in in about 6 hours.  No hurting the horse at all.  Before he sat on the horse he had it changing direction on one long reign cantering around a yard with just the slightest input to the horse.  He said you needed to teach them to turn like a train not like a boat - never quite understood what he meant but something to do with turning the head and neck.

I remember having a yarn with Chris Rutten about horses that have issues.  His view was that you can break any habit without using violence or hurting the horse.  Interestingly he was the horse trainer on Lord of the Rings and no doubt had to train a few precious actors as well.

[aquaman]

Another thing they will not mention in this PC world is the fact the female brain is different to the male brain, they are wired differently, and the decision making process can differ from males, and I do not mean this in a derogatory way. In this life no matter what the feminists will have you believe, the simple fact is we are not equal in the natural world. In the domain of horse racing, split decisions can be the difference between life and death. I am a fan of female jockey's, lots of horses run for them, but when looking for reasons as to why 75% of fatalities among jockey's are female, then the psychological aspect needs to be considered just as the physical one is.