a ramble around the gathering pace of females in sport.

​Perhaps it is because I am of an age when if life had panned-out differently I would be a grandfather, but I am becoming more and more a supporter and follower of females in sport than, as was the case for most of my life, my own gender. Over the last ten or twelve-years I have grown to enjoy the woman’s side of football over the men’s game, to the point now when if I watch the men’s game it is far more likely to be ‘The Big Match Revisited’ than ‘Match of the Day’ or an England international. For instance, I did not watch a single game during last year’s World Cup won by Argentina. I lost faith in the England men’s team when they lost that semi-final to Croatia.
Amazingly, considering my 100% allegiance to horse racing, my favourite ever sporting moment is no longer Red Rum’s third Grand National win, Desert Orchid’s Gold Cup or Sprinter Sacre winning the 2016 Champion 2-mile Chase but England winning the European Championship at Wembley last summer. I think Ella Toone’s opening goal will remain forever my favourite goal. It was a beautiful sporting occasion, with an atmosphere that transported me back many decades to when football was sheer sport, played by people who play the game not for what they can get out of it but out of passion and privilege for being able to play the game. I only have to hear ‘Sweet Caroline’ on the radio for the emotion of the occasion to flood back.
On the flip side is this, and I am sure female jockeys get this crap all the time. Any comment I post on a female football website or even Sky News, will receive replies from bigots informing me that men are better at football than women, using profanities and insults that would shame their grannies. And if you remind them that they are comparing apples with pears and that a top woman’s team would also always likely beat a good under sixteen boys team, you either receive silence or more abuse. I have no problem with people airing their differing opinions but couldn’t tech companies at least insist on basic good manners from the users of their social media outlets?
I’m old enough to remember when ‘jockettes’, as they were first labelled, were such a novelty that the first female restricted horse race created headlines on all national news broadcasts. If they only knew then what we know now, eh!
Yesterday I watched Nick Luck interview Joanne Mason, the female, who along with Saffie Osborne, I believe possesses the necessary riding talent to be riding good horses at all the top meetings. A great interviewer and a lovely interviewee. The door of opportunity, of course, is now ajar for femal jockeys, which was never likely to be the situation thirty-years ago, and all Joanne, Saffie and others require is for, as in the days of ‘manners maketh the man’ a gentleman trainer (or owner or fellow female trainer) to open the door wide and to guide them into the parade rings on the biggest of days.
Hayley Turner, riding as good as ever at the advanced age of forty as when in her prime, is a wonderful ambassador for the sport in general and Holly Doyle continues to raise the bar ever higher for those of her sex who presently ride in her wake. Yet the job is not yet done. I hope in the last year’s of my lifetime to witness a female jockey win the Epsom Derby or at least an English classic. It is on the horizon, that’s for sure. As is an England football team winning a World Cup.
Yet in Ireland, there is no female jockey within hailing distance of Rachel Blackmore, though her standing in the sport has allowed a few females to turn professional, with only Siobhan Routledge riding winners with any consistency on the flat. Britain leads the way when it comes to female participation in day-to-day horse racing.
Why is this topic important? Because half the population of the world is female and for horse racing to survive when statistics suggest a large decline in public interest in the sport over the past decade, we must establish the narrative that we are an all-inclusive, equal opportunity, sport. We need female jockeys riding regularly in the top races and we need females attending race-meetings not as clothes-horses but as genuine horse racing fans.
As when Merriel Tuffnel won the first all-female jockeys race at Kempton, the sport should be looking for a similar headline grabbing event. Which is why I proposed (to silence) the B.H.A. should establish the most valuable professional female rider restricted flat race in the world. A race professional female jockeys all around the world would have at the top of their wish-list. A race, at least in its inaugural year, that would receive the novelty mention on at least some national news broadcasts.
I would also like to see ‘low weight’ races established, where the weights favour lighter jockeys over the top jockeys who ordinarily struggle to do much below 8st 7Ibs. ‘Low weight races’ would not, of course, be restricted to females but would give the light male jockeys greater opportunities as at present, as weights rise to conform to the increasing body-weight of males in the population, are being penalised. 
The B.H.A. are standing still on this aspect of promoting the sport, whereas the F.A. have their shoulder to the wheel in their efforts to increase female participation in football at all levels. Yes, the B.H.A. have, perhaps, more important matters to attend to at present and finances in the sport are tight. Yet, I would suggest, one of the listed or Group 3 race they propose to axe next season could be given a new lease of life by being transformed into the richest female-jockey restricted race in the world. It’s all a matter of looking outside the box.