What is it about?
In summary, the flat racing world is very male-dominated, with the majority of jockeys being male (~90:10, male to female ratio). This likely reflects an unconscious bias. Nevertheless, in 2021, a female jockey – Rachael Blackmore – won many high-profile races and the tide is turning. This prompted ourselves to investigate objectively whether there were any overt differences in the physiology and performance of racehorses in training, according to sex of the work-rider; whether in training or in racing.
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Why is it important?
Our null results for physiology (heart rate, heart rate recovery etc…), locomotion (stride length, frequency) and for race results confirm the null hypothesis, that there is no discernible difference between male or female jockeys on racehorses, although some interesting small effects were noted that may reflect human psychological differences between the sexes.
Perspectives
We found no effect of sex of the jockey on any objectively measured outcome variable, measured from slow-canter to hard, race-pace gallops. But would this lack of effect of sex of jockey in training, also translate to actual race results, where many other variables come into play? Analysing results from 52,464 races, female jockeys had a similar win percentage (of total race starts) as male jockeys in the UK (female, 10.7% vs. male, 11.3%). In Australia, male jockeys had a slightly higher win percentage (11.0 vs. 9.9%), but this was negated when considering a top three race finish. Taken together, we found minimal effect of the sex of the jockey on both training and race outcomes. Some curious effects were observed. For example, recovery of racehorse heart rate after exercise appeared influenced by sex of the rider, but only when the usual training intensity on each track surface (grass or sand) was reversed. Male work-riders, more so than female, perhaps anticipated the ‘expected’ training-intensity (e.g. gallop on grass) and their proposed anticipation was transmitted faithfully to the horse, who responded with higher or lower heart rate. Further work is needed, however, to confirm this effect. When considered across all training sessions, then no difference in expected recovery rates of racehorses were noted between male and female jockeys.
Professor David S Gardner
University of Nottingham
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Does sex of the jockey influence racehorse physiology and performance, PLOS One, August 2022, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273310.
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