Guineas Festival debrief: when will we see a woman crowned Champion Jockey?
While King Charles III’s coronation was the nation’s main talking point this weekend, the racing world had more than half an eye on Newmarket.
The Guineas Festival marked the start of the flat season proper and was a chance for prospective Champion Jockeys to lay down early markers. Incumbent and current odds-on favourite to retain his crown William Buick did his hopes no harm with four winners, including a Sunday hat-trick.
The returning Oisin Murphy, the 5/4 second-favourite, arguably had a more eye-catching weekend. He landed three winners and he almost caused the biggest of early season upsets in Saturday’s 2,000 Guineas, riding 125/1 outsider Hi Royal to an impressive second behind Frankie Dettori’s Chaldean. Murphy then narrowly won the 1,000 Guineas aboard 9/1 shot Mawj.
The next two jockeys in the line of favourites for the championship were conspicuous by their absences from this this weekend’s showpiece meeting. Husband and wife duo Tom Marquand (20/1) and Hollie Doyle (25/1) are currently third and fourth-favourites respectively having both finished last season on the podium while Murphy was serving a suspension for Covid violations.
While Marquand was stood down from the weekend’s action following an elbow injury, Doyle elected to head to Goodwood on Saturday where more rides were on offer as she re-builds race fitness following an injury of her own in January.
Doyle’s inclusion on the list of favourites, while at long odds, is no surprise. Her ascension since joining trainer Richard Hannon as an apprentice in 2014 has been extraordinary.
By 2017 she had already ridden out her claim (amassed 95 wins) and just two years later she would beat Josephine Gordon’s record of winners in a single season by a female jockey, notching 116 ot Gordon’s best of 106.
She then smashed that record again with a stunning 152. After coming fourth in the jockeys championship, she was named 2020 Sportswoman of the Year by The Times and came third in Sports Personality of the Year.
That was the highest ever championship finish by a woman and was another of her own records that she would break when she came third in 2022. Presently, she is the only woman who is priced up for the title and she seems best-placed to become the first woman to win it – but when?
She has five Group One wins under her belt already and given her rides for some of Britain and Ireland’s best trainers that number looks set to grow. Many speculate that she is likely to supplant Frankie Dettori as John and Thady Gosden’s rider of choice when the Italian retires in October. She has won a French Classic for the father-son stable and ridden in Britain for them on numerous occasions as well as for other powerhouses such as Aidan O’Brien.
Replacing Dettori would certainly improve her championship prospects but the Gosdens’ preference for quality over quantity would do far more to bolster Doyle’s international reputation.
Dettori has only won the riders’ championship three times and hasn’t done so since 2004. That is reflective of his globetrotting tendencies and ability to pick and choose mounts thanks to his superstar status. So, even if Doyle had picked up all 38 of Dettori’s British winners last season she would only have accrued 129 wins to Buick’s winning haul of 157.
That still leaves quite a windfall. Such is Murphy’s talent, Doyle would need to do considerably better still were Buick to dramatically drop off somehow.
A lot can happen in a short time in racing, injuries and suspensions can crop up when you least expect it, but Doyle becoming Champion Jockey still feels like a distant prospect.
This issue is worth looking at below the surface. With Doyle, Gordon, Hayley Turner and relative newcomer Nicola Currie enjoying success on the flat as well as Rachael Blackmore’s success over jumps in recent years, it feels like women are on the rise in racing – but are they?
It would appear not. At least, not enough.
A 2021 study found that only 14% of licensed professional jockeys were women. Furthermore, only 5% of available rides were taken by female jockeys.
These are alarming numbers for a sport that would seem to favour a woman anatomically. The simple absence of testosterone makes it easier for a woman with a strict diet and appropriate training to make the weight requirements of a modern jockey than for a man of the same height to do so under the same program. The average difference in height between the two sexes would therefore seem to further weigh in women’s favour as well as their tendency to have longer legs.
The battles many men have faced in their bid to keep to such weight restrictions are well documented.
Murphy himself has opened up about his alcohol use since his 14-month ban from the sport, while Kieran Shoemark, Ray Dawson, Johnny Murtagh and Dettori are among big names to have unhealthy relationships with substances of various kinds. Rumours of other issues such as bulimia being rife are never far from men’s weighing rooms either.
Rarely do these issues emerge from the women’s quarters.
The simple fact is that more women than men are suited to a consistent weight of eight or nine stone.
The requirements seem progressively less likely to change. Horse welfare has become ever more important in the fight to keep the sport relevant and it is simply too dangerous for the animals to carry heavier jockeys than they currently do. The solution seems to be, therefore, to get more women into the sport.
Racing must hope that it can capitalise on the success of a select few. If it plays its cards right their success might inspire a generation of young girls to get into racing who otherwise wouldn’t have.
This wouldn’t completely counter all calls for the sport to be banned but it might help. If the sport had a cleaner, more woman-friendly image, some of its shortcomings in terms of animal welfare and its affiliation with the gambling industry ethics might be more easily forgiven.
