Female jockeys breaking new ground in most dangerous of careers

What chance the world’s top female tennis player, Ash Barty, beating men’s No.1 Novak Djokovic? Not so long ago, the odds would have been similar about a female jockey, say Jamie Kah, on a favourite like Nature Strip accounting for a male rival like Nash Rawiller, with arms and heels serving it up to Eduardo, in Flemington’s outstanding Lightning Stakes on Saturday.

Meanwhile, at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday, Rachel King handles the flighty filly Queen Of The Ball in the Silver Slipper, where gate speed so ably applied by her last start could again prove vital.

Yes, racing has come a long way since women were regarded as a weaker link between human and horse in the most dangerous of careers where there are no easy rides regardless of age or gender.

This was highlighted again recently with the death of Marina Morel, a French apprentice at Gulgong, in a trackwork accident which prompted the memory of Banjo Paterson’s Only A Jockey.

“Richard Bennison, a jockey, aged 14, while riding William Tell in his training was thrown and killed. The horse is luckily uninjured,” was the report that stimulated Paterson’s verse.

Apart from races, the more menial endeavours like barrier trials and track gallops, and even strappers supervising thoroughbreds, place those involved at high risk. Race riding at the picnics for amateurs also takes a toll.

The most dangerous of careers where there are no easy rides regardless of age or gender.

“Update on Mum … eight days after her fall she is back home. She’s a tough cookie. Even with nine broken ribs, a swollen face and plates in her jaw, she walked herself from the ward to reception to be picked up,” a tweet reported after Debbie Waymouth, 66, had a fall at the Woolamai picnic races on January 15.

In Paterson’s era - and even for the first 20 years of my own writing on turf matters - the suggestion of a female jockey handling a favourite in a speed test like the Lightning Stakes down the straight Flemington 1000 metres was inconceivable.

Sure, Kah broke new ground when she scored on Nature Strip, now regarded as the world’s best sprinter, in the corresponding race last year. It’s even tougher on Saturday.

“The Lightning always puts together a good field, but I think this year probably shades the others in terms of pre-race strength,” Dan O’Sullivan, a top ratings analyst, decreed in Racing.com.

“The four highest-rated sprinters from the spring of last year: Nature Strip, Eduardo, Masked Crusader and Home Affairs - they’re all in the Lightning, and just in recent history, the last five years or so, it seems extremely rare that we actually get that.”

As in the Everest at Randwick last October, when Nature Strip was navigated superbly by James McDonald, the best ride will win.

From the six gate, an ideal draw, Kah will have to contend with Rawiller, who judges Eduardo to a nicety and the likely improver Home Affairs, a four-year-old under J-Mac.

Masked Crusader, too, can produce a dazzling finish and most of lesser lights cannot be wiped either.

Perhaps the task for King on Queen Of The Ball in the Silver Slipper, an intriguing pressure test for two-year-olds in a lacklustre category this season, isn’t as demanding.

Queen Of the Ball flew the lids for King from a wide barrier to win easily over the Saturday’s course and distance on January 22 but on a biased surface, rated a good four. Queen Of The Ball will be a test case to what degree it favoured front-runners near the fence.

Watch Ojai, taken back last start when Queen Of The Ball went forward. She can do better. Winkers could help her too.

Ojai is trained by James Cummings who will try earplugs pre-race on Anamoe, anticipated to be the best three-year-old this season, in the Hobartville. Cummings will apply the gear change in the hope of rectifying the parade behaviour, hot and frothy, when beaten at Rosehill last start. Punters prefer their three-year-olds cool, calm and collected. Just like Barty.