Yes, girls and women can absolutely be jockeys. There are no gender-based restrictions on obtaining a jockey license in any major racing jurisdiction, and women have been competing professionally since the 1930s. While female jockeys remain a minority in the sport, some have reached its highest levels, winning races like the Grand National, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, and the Breeders’ Cup.
Women Have Raced Professionally for Decades
Anna Lee Aldred became the first American woman licensed as a professional jockey in 1939, when she was just 18 years old. Progress was slow for decades after that, but by the late 1980s, women were breaking through at the sport’s most prestigious events. Gay Kelleway became the first woman to win at Royal Ascot in 1987, and amateurs Caroline Beasley and Gee Armytage each registered wins at the elite Cheltenham Festival around the same time.
The most dominant female jockey in recent history is Ireland’s Rachael Blackmore. She won the Grand National in 2021 aboard Minella Times, a moment that made headlines worldwide. But her Cheltenham Festival record may be even more impressive: 18 victories there, including two Champion Hurdles and the 2022 Gold Cup, jump racing’s most coveted prize. By the time she captured the Stayers’ Hurdle on Bob Olinger, she became only the third jockey, male or female, to win all five of the Festival’s marquee races. Even the legendary Tony McCoy never managed that.
Physical Requirements Are Gender-Neutral
Jockey licensing requirements make no distinction between men and women. In the United States, you need to be at least 18, pass a physical exam with 20/20 vision (corrected is fine), and have at least two years of horsemanship experience, including one year as a licensed exercise rider at a recognized racetrack. From there, you ride in enough races for the stewards to confirm your competence, and you receive your apprentice license.
The real physical filter is weight, not gender. Most jockeys try to stay at or under 118 pounds, and North American racing typically allows between 112 and 126 pounds including tack. Since equipment can weigh up to 10 pounds, jockeys themselves often weigh between 108 and 118 pounds when they step on the scale. To hit these numbers without sacrificing strength, jockeys tend to be between 4’10” and 5’6″. There’s no official height maximum, but taller riders face a constant battle with weight that can shorten careers.
The job itself is brutally demanding. Jockeys spend races in a deep crouch, controlling a thousand-pound animal at speeds over 40 mph while packed into tight quarters with other horses. Core strength, leg endurance, and split-second reflexes are non-negotiable. Pound for pound, jockeys are often compared to elite gymnasts or cyclists.
How Women Compare Physically to Male Jockeys
Research on thoroughbred jockeys has found that the physical demands of racing create a surprisingly level playing field between genders. The crouched riding posture rewards flexibility, which tends to favor women. Men generally have a slight edge in reaction time, which matters in crowded fields. At the same weight, male jockeys carry more lean muscle mass and less body fat, but female jockeys have higher bone density, greater metabolic energy, and a lower risk of being dangerously underweight.
That last point is significant. Male jockeys often push their bodies to extreme limits to make weight, relying on severe dieting and dehydration. Women naturally tend to carry weight differently and may face less pressure to shed pounds through harmful methods. Several major tracks, including Woodbine in Ontario, have raised minimum weights in recent years specifically to protect jockey health.
When researchers have directly compared race results, one study found that women achieved slightly better results than men when riding horses of similar quality. The raw win percentages tell a different story at first glance: male jockeys in one large sample won about 13% of their races compared to roughly 11% for women. But that gap largely reflects the fact that female jockeys are often given fewer rides on top horses, not that they perform worse with equal opportunities.
Barriers Women Still Face
The biggest challenge for female jockeys isn’t physical ability or licensing rules. It’s access. Horse racing is a business where trainers choose which jockey rides their horse, and those decisions are influenced by reputation, relationships, and sometimes bias. Women make up a small fraction of active professional jockeys, and breaking into the network of trainers and owners who control ride assignments can be harder for women. Rachael Blackmore’s trainer Henry de Bromhead put it simply: “I never gave her our job. She just kept riding winners.” In other words, she had to prove herself through sheer volume of results before the opportunities came consistently.
Pregnancy and maternity leave present another practical challenge. The international equestrian federation allows maternity leave of 3 to 12 months, during which riders retain 50% of their ranking points from the previous year but cannot compete in any races. For a jockey whose career depends on staying in the rotation and maintaining relationships with trainers, even a few months away can mean rebuilding from scratch. There’s no equivalent career interruption that male jockeys face.
How to Start a Career as a Female Jockey
The path into professional race riding is the same regardless of gender. Most jockeys start working around horses in their early teens, often at farms or training yards, mucking stalls and learning to handle horses before they ever sit in a racing saddle. By 16 or 17, aspiring jockeys typically work as exercise riders, galloping horses during morning training sessions at racetracks. At 18, you can apply for an apprentice jockey license.
Apprentice jockeys receive a weight allowance, meaning horses they ride carry 5 to 10 fewer pounds than they would with an experienced rider. This gives new jockeys a competitive edge that helps them attract rides early in their careers. The allowance decreases as you accumulate wins. Some racing jurisdictions also have formal jockey academies that compress the learning curve, teaching race-riding technique, fitness, nutrition, and the rules of racing in a structured program.
The fitness demands are worth taking seriously from the start. Successful jockeys rely heavily on bodyweight exercises and resistance training, building strength without adding bulk. As one professional jockey described it: lots of bodyweight and resistance work, some strength training but not too much weight, staying strong without putting on extra muscle. Many find that the physical work of morning training rides and afternoon races is enough to maintain their fitness, occasionally using a sauna to drop half a pound before weigh-in.