4 lbs Allowance For Female Riders In France

Thanks, Ginge. I tweeted it to her so hopefully she will see it. She did mention about coming out of retirement on the back of this news, on ITV last weekend.

I will run the numbers on a less successful female jockey when I get the chance.

Personally I do think there is a bias against female jockeys in racing and I’m all for programs that increase their chances. Hayley Turner only had 14 Group 1 rides in 10 full seasons between 2006 and 2015 (UK and IRE) at a median SP of 25/1, which is almost nothing considering she had the ability to win on two of them.

But I do think applying a uniform weight allowance (in the UK anyway), regardless of ability is silly.

Pattern races and the big daily ‘Quinte’ handicap will be exempt from the allowance.

You sound Smart Gingertipster
Don’t need more strengh than lifting 50kgs above ones head a few times. Never had a horse take charge and not the only Female Jockey experiencing that. Technique.

Gingertipster wrote:

Trouble with a 4 lbs allowance is horses are not all the same.

Some need exceptionally strong handling, eg a hard puller. These are not ideal for female jockeys and some otherwise excellent males. However, from what I’ve seen when studying form, with most horses a good female jockey replacing a good male doesn’t put me off in the slightest. I believe there’s no difference in form levels of horses. It’s all about technique/skill. ie Lady jockeys who’ve done enough exercise to achieve a strong female body (and have technique/skill) can prosper even without a 4 lbs allowance. That means a 4 lbs allowance would give female jockeys an unfair advantage when riding most horses. Presumably the allowance is for every race, including Group 1’s? The best horse may not be the winner, even if all horses get good rides.

Where is the analysis and logic in all this? It is at the level of Mike Cattermole’s opinion in the Sporting Life of 10/02/17 in favour of the proposal: “I have written in this column before about how Lizzie Kelly, the leading lady jumps rider in the country, has been struggling to get rides even after becoming the first woman to win a Grade One over a year ago. And she still claims! What isn’t there to like? This has to go down to attitude and prejudice and clearly the French are trying to do something about it. “ There he is saying that the proposal will encourage French owners and trainers to put up female jockeys because they will carry less weight, and here he is saying no-one will put up Lizzie Kelly, a very good and succesful woman jockey, even though she has a weight allowance. He appears to be saying “What a good idea, they should implement it, even though I know it does not change attitudes and prejudices!”

Instead of talking from a position of lack of knowledge, perhaps the racing authorities ought to conduct a long term study to find out if women jockeys really are as good as men, or is it ingrained, old-fashioned, uneducated attitudes and prejudices that cause the imbalance in the success of men and women jockeys in France or the UK. About twenty years, or ten thousand races, covering a few hundred jockeys with all the variables controlled should cover it. So is it not lucky that such an experiment has already been done.

In New Zealand there are about 200 jockeys. About 40% of them are women. They appear to have had relatively equal opportunities compared to men over the past several decades. It has got to the stage that in the last full flat season in NZ, four of the top ten jockeys were women, including the champion, Lisa Allpress, and the third-placed Danielle Johnson. Just in case you think that it might be harder work or more financially pressured in the UK, the relative champion jockey stats for the last flat seasons are:

Lisa Allpress: Rides – 928, Wins – 171, Winnings – £1,600,000
Jim Crowley: Rides – 759, Wins – 148, Winnings – £1,400,000

In the current flat season in New Zealand women jockeys are first, second, and fifth in the jockeys table.

So it is not necessary to say that Hayley Turner, Julie Krone, Rosie Napravnik, Nina Carberry and Josephine Gordon constitute too small a group to demonstrate whether it is ability or prejudice that limits women’s succes as jockeys in the UK or France. The data is there for all to see.

The French authorities giving women an artificial advantage and giving men an artificial disadvantage does nothing to address the root cause of this problem. And judging by Mike Cattermole’s view of Lizzie Kelly’s great ability but her lack of opportunity to express it, the weight difference will make no change to the number of rides given to women jockeys, and hence their possibility of an equal opportunity to prove their worth.