In today's Racing Post, Chris Cook dedicates his column to the 'plight' of female jockeys and why 'we' should not get carried away with Saffie Osborne winning the St. Leger last Saturday. He is right to mark the card for everyone. As much as it was a genuine history-making day for females in sport, nothing has markedly changed for female riders since the day Hayley Turner won the July Cup as they remain more than a little unrepresentated when it comes to Group 1's and classics. Given females are, in the main, lighter than their male equivalents, and should be achieving rides in the big handicaps in higher numbers than is the case - 25 go for the Ayr Gold Cup tomorrow, with only two ridden by female jockeys - they were scarsely seen in any of the Royal Ascot handicaps, for instance. As Chris Cook highlighted, of the top fifty in the jockeys championship, only three are female, though if Hollie Doyle was not injured that could have been four.
No one, and this includes Osbourne and Doyle, deserve a free ride as to be successful in our sport jockeys, male and female, must be dedicated, fit as butchers' dogs and hard-working. But what is missed by the majority is that a major success for a female jockey, both in National Hunt and the flat, is greeted with delight and tears of joy by the racing public, and it must be admitted by the cynics and the chauvinists that if a male jockey had ridden Highwayman at Doncaster neither would have made the front page of The Daily Telegraph.
What is required, I believe, to balance the scales a wee bit on the flat is a return of races restricted to professional female riders, a dedicated trophy for the leading female rider of the season and for a race to be established that would be the most valuable race in the world restricted to female jockeys. Anyone who follows womans football will know that many brand names associated with females, perfume, soaps etc, can be seen on advertising boards around the pitch. A race such as I propose could have the potential to attract sponsorship from these companies.
Although there is blatant favouritism in my proposal, as there are perhaps as many male jockeys as females deserving of better rides, all of whom are as dedicated as our female jockeys, I am advocating something that would be to the betterment of the sport, and anything that persuades new eyes on our sport, that puts more bums on seats, can only be of benefit, short and long-term? Although the summer is full of festival fixtures, there are weekends that lack sparkle and it is on these dates where we could promote the female jockey and the sport with the sort of race I propose.
The Yarmouth stewards have brought an end to the jockeys championship battle by slapping Oisin Murphy with a 3-day careless riding ban. I have not seen the race and cannot comment on whether it was justified or not. Ironically, though not deliberately, I would imagine, it was Billy Loughnane's mount that suffered interference as Billy was beginning to make his challenge. Again, I say this: if a car moves without warning from an inside lane right in front of you, that driver is guilty of either driving without all due care and attention or dangerous driving. Careless and accidental, in racing terms, is not considered 'dangerous', yet both careless riding and accidental incidents can prove a danger to the lives of jockeys and horses. It is my belief that all riding incidents during a race should be treated and named as 'dangerous', with different grades of 'dangerous' requiring different periods of suspension, from 3-months down to 10-days. Although the fall at York that resulted in the retirement of Jim Crowley and the possible retirement of Trevor Whelan was not the fault of any jockey riding in the race, that horrifying incident could easily be replacated by jockey error today, tomorrow or next week. At the moment, the suspensions given to jockeys is small beer in comparison to the riches they can acrue throughout their careers. If Oisin were closer to Billy Loughnane in the jockeys championship than the 3-days would sting harder. If those 3-days prevented him riding in the Arc or on Champions Day it would hit harder still. When Rossa Ryan was initially slapped with a 28-day ban for what was human error that cost no jockey any injury and allowed punters to win when all hope might have been lost, it brought home to me the insanity of lesser sentences for incidents in races that cause falls, near-falls and the sort of pinball effect that Shane Foley caused in the Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.
I do wonder, though there would be obvious flaws in the proposal, if jockeys did not suffer bans through the season for their misdemeanours but the lengths of the suspensions were accumulated and served at the start of the following season. As bans are reciprocated all around the world, a ban of thirty-days, for instance, from the first day of the turf season, might sting far harder and have far more consequences than 3-days in October. For the worst offenders, it might mean missing the Guineas meeting, for instances. I might also suggest that if a jockey causes a fall and is given, as I would like to see, a 30-day ban, along with other bans from the season before, a jockey could easily miss the first two-months of a new season. The win at all costs ride given by Shane Foley should be a wake-up call to the B.H.A. and other governing bodies to think again about the rules regarding what jockeys can and cannot do in a race, especially whether to disqualify irrespective if it is percived 'that the best horse won'. I would have disqualified Hotazhell and placed him last. Actions have consequences and those consequencies should involve the owner.
The flaw in my proposal would be when a jockey retires at the end of a season and knowing of his impending retirement the jockey rides as he pleases, accumalating suspensions that he knows he or she would never serve. In this instance, the punishment would be financial, perhaps 10% of money earned the previous season.