THE TIME HAD TO COME.

​If I have enough functioning brain cells for my ability to count to be relied upon – recent experiences suggest not – this past National Hunt season in Britain and Ireland female jockeys have won 259 races between them, 163 in Britain and 96 in Ireland. I would guess this constitutes a record haul for the girls, though I dare say the ladies Gordon, Doyle and Currie will get close to topping that total between them this flat season.
In Ireland, though, come the new season, Racheal Blackmore will have to work damn hard to keep the total upwardly mobile as the Irish team of female jockeys will be depleted for some while with the shock news that both Katie Walsh and Nina Carberry have both retired from race-riding. Although the announcements must have come as sweet music to the ears of their loved-ones, for me, a supporter of female jockeys since those long ago days when Hayley Turner was an apprentice, the news was tinged with sadness for the closing of an era.
Of course, the movement that is the rise and rise of lady jockeys will be hard hit, especially in Ireland, a country that can only boast two female professional jockeys. Not that Katie and Nina were truly of the movement as they had long left their gender behind when it came to the craft of horsemanship and race-riding. They may have been amateur for the whole of their careers but they were at the summit of that division, accepted as being the equal of most male professionals. I suppose being a Walsh or a Carberry allowed them no choice if they wanted to race-ride other than to be as successful and skilful as their brothers and fathers.
I honestly thought, and no doubt predicted somewhere within the pages of this website, that one or the other would be the first female jockey to win the Grand National. Famously, of course, they both have won the Irish equivalent, plus a good smattering of prizes at the Cheltenham Festival and it was fitting that their final rides were winners at the Punchestown Festival. Racing history, though, will now have to written by Bryony, Rachael, Lizzie or some other female and when this greatest of sporting barriers is finally beaten down I hope the winning jockey will possess the awareness to remember the names of the two women who helped to open the door on their careers.
Without being fully cognizant of the honour people of my age have lived through a significant period in the history of horse racing. Yes, over the decades female success in the riding ranks has trickled through the form book. But in the era of Katie Walsh and Nina Carberry the success was sustained and through their achievements the likes of Bryony Frost and Lizzie Kelly were given role models to look up to and emulate and it could be argued that their achievements even outweigh the accomplishments of any of the Walshes or Carberrys to have gone before them. They may have ended their careers with the respect and admiration of their peers but they started out as ‘girl jockeys’ with all the prejudices attached to the label and through hard work and sheer ability overcame and conquered a sport that has the ability to wither the spirit and crush the soul of even the hardiest of men and when the next history of horse racing is published, unlike the 1966 edition commemorating 150 years of the sport when female jump jockeys were not even a consideration, their names will be recorded and honoured as the women who changed attitudes and rewrote the record books.
After Cheltenham in March, when Ruby was carted off yet again to hospital, I thought we would never see him in the saddle again. I have lived through an era of great jockeys and since the word ‘professionalism’ has become accepted as something not to be feared by the brave men who ride over steeplechase fences the standard of jockeyship and all-round horsemanship has improved to the point of near-perfection. At the pinnacle of this rising sphere of great National Hunt jockeys is, to my unqualified eye, Ruby Walsh. Mind you, if Paul Carberry had taken the concept of ‘professionalism’ more seriously and not wrapped around his shoulders the epithet of ‘mad genius’ he undoubtedly would have no peers when it came to the art and guile of riding racehorses.
It is in the limelight of the two most supremely gifted of jockeys ever to grace our sport that Katie and Nina had to perform and I suspect the greatest compliment one could offer up is that their families and loved-ones must be flushed with pride at what the two girls achieved and the respect in which they are held by their peers, by those who write and comment on the sport and, perhaps surprisingly of all, by punters. Katie, remember, rode the favourite for the Grand National the year she finished third. That she was a girl that day mattered not one jot. She was a Walsh. She was Katie Walsh. The diehard punters considered their cash safe with her riding.
It would be appropriate if at one of the big Irish festivals a race was run annually for female jockeys and named after Katie and Nina. It should be a classy sort of race, not a run-of-the-mill handicap, reflecting the ladies the race honours.