There are female jockeys, but remarkably few compared to men, especially at the sport’s highest levels. In British National Hunt racing, women make up about 17% of licensed jockeys yet account for just 5.9% of all rides and only 2% of the top 50 riders in the official championship. The gap between holding a license and actually getting on a horse tells most of the story: the barriers aren’t really about ability. They’re about history, hiring practices, and a racing culture that has been slow to change.
Women Were Banned Until the Late 1960s
For most of professional horse racing’s history, women were simply not allowed to compete. In the United States, state racing commissions refused to grant licenses to women without any formal rule saying why. The turning point came in 1967 when Kathy Kusner, a 27-year-old Olympic equestrian medalist, applied for a jockey’s license in Maryland and was flatly denied. She sued, won, and in October 1968 became the first licensed female jockey in the country.
Even after the legal door opened, the culture slammed it shut. When Diane Crump attempted to ride at Hialeah racetrack, the hostility was so intense she needed a police escort through the crowd. Churchill Downs management asked her not to ride there to avoid controversy. When another woman, Penny Ann Early, tried to race, male jockeys threatened to boycott. This wasn’t subtle resistance. If a female jockey entered a race, male jockeys would stage walkouts. That atmosphere persisted for years and kept many women from even trying.
The Myth of a Physical Disadvantage
The most common justification for sidelining women has been that they lack the strength to control a racehorse. Men do generally carry more lean muscle mass and have greater cardiovascular capacity. But research published in the Journal of Sports Economics found no significant productivity difference between male and female jockeys when other factors were controlled. Female jockeys win at roughly the same rate as men when given comparable mounts.
A successful jockey needs strength endurance, balance, fast reaction time, and flexibility. Weight matters far more than raw power. Male jockeys typically ride at 113 to 118 pounds including gear, while female jockeys ride at 107 to 114 pounds. Both need to stay under about 120 pounds and usually stand shorter than five foot six. Women often meet these requirements more naturally than men, who sometimes resort to extreme dehydration and disordered eating to make weight. The physical argument, when examined closely, doesn’t hold up as a reason women should be underrepresented.
Trainers Control Who Gets to Ride
The real bottleneck is the mount selection process. Jockeys don’t pick their own races. Trainers and owners decide which jockey rides which horse, and those decisions are shaped by personal relationships built over years. During the apprenticeship period, trainers control nearly every aspect of a young jockey’s career, including which horses they ride and how often. This system gives trainers enormous discretionary power, and research shows they use it in ways that disadvantage women.
A study in the Journal of Sports Economics found that female jockeys received significantly fewer mounts than male jockeys after controlling for performance and experience. Even more telling: when female jockeys performed well, their success was not rewarded with additional mounts at the same rate as their male counterparts. A male jockey who finishes in the money gets more opportunities. A female jockey who does the same does not see the same return. The researchers concluded that selecting a jockey solely on the basis of sex “is not justified by the results presented here.”
This creates a vicious cycle. Fewer mounts mean fewer chances to win, fewer wins mean lower earnings, and lower earnings make it harder to stay in the profession. The networking that drives mount selection, much of it built in informal settings around the barn and weighing room, has historically been harder for women to access in a male-dominated environment.
Facilities Still Lag Behind
The physical infrastructure of racecourses reinforces the problem. In 2021, British racecourses were set targets to upgrade weighing room facilities to provide adequate changing rooms, showers, and working areas for female jockeys. By the deadline in late 2023, just 13 of Britain’s 59 racecourses had completed the work. The Professional Jockeys Association reported that 80% of courses missed the deadline, and some Jockey Club venues won’t even begin construction until 2028.
The jockeys’ union has called the delays a form of prolonged discrimination. Reports from female jockeys describe overcrowded changing rooms, flooded shower areas, mold, and electrical safety issues. While separate male and female changing rooms technically exist at all UK racecourses, the quality gap is stark. The chair of the Horseracing Industry People Board acknowledged that the workplace “is not what should be expected in the 21st century.”
Poor facilities send a message about who the sport considers a priority. When a young woman weighing whether to pursue racing sees that the industry can’t manage basic plumbing for its female athletes, the calculus shifts.
The Numbers Tell the Story
In Britain, women hold about 28% of jockey licenses. That’s a meaningful share and reflects growing interest in the profession. But the gap between license holders and actual participation is enormous. During a recent study period covering over 3,300 National Hunt races and more than 30,000 runners, female jockeys accounted for just 5.9% of rides and 5.5% of wins, despite representing 17% of the jockey pool. Only 2% of the top 50 championship riders were women.
Those numbers reflect a pipeline that narrows dramatically at every stage. Women enter the sport, earn licenses, and then struggle to get enough rides to build a career. The ones who break through tend to be exceptional. Rachael Blackmore won the Champion Hurdle aboard Honeysuckle and took the Ryanair Chase with Allaho at the Cheltenham Festival, becoming one of the most celebrated jockeys of either gender. Hollie Doyle has established herself as a force on the flat. But their success, while inspiring, remains the exception rather than evidence of a level playing field.
What’s Actually Changing
The British Horseracing Authority has stated that facilities should be “fair and equal for competitors of all genders” and has launched a workforce strategy that includes prioritizing gender equality, running anti-sexual misconduct campaigns, and introducing employer quality standards. The industry has publicly acknowledged the need for a culture change.
Progress is slow. The timeline for facility upgrades stretches to 2030. The deeper issue of mount allocation, which sits in the hands of individual trainers and owners making private decisions, is harder to regulate. Economic theory suggests that in a truly competitive market, the best riders would be hired regardless of sex. The fact that this hasn’t happened despite decades of female jockeys proving their ability points to structural bias that good intentions alone won’t fix.