Rosie Napravnik learned to ride horses until she could walk. However, being the first female jockey to win the Kentucky Derby was not his driving ambition.
"I was determined to be the youngest jockey to win the Triple Crown, not only the first woman," she said, not too long ago. "But who was supposed to happen when I was 16"
Of course, it does since Napravnik returned on February 23 and just picked up his first Triple Crown-caliber mount, a dark bay colt named pants On Fire. For all the progress made by the sport, its name suggest that most of the men who still control the Thoroughbred racket would experience before turning over millions of dollars worth of besieged to a woman rider.
"It is still a world of men," said Napravnik. "You get always that almost every day:"I don't want to get a girl."" The owner does not want to get a girl. You are not as strong, you are not like this, you are not only that. ?
"It is probably not nearly what it was to be", she added, "but it is still there."
Diane Crump was the first woman to ride in a race of mutual - in 1969, at Hialeah Park, where she needed a police escort to get - and the Kentucky Derby the following year. Since then, only four of his fellow, including Julie Krone, the most successful, experienced travellers and single female rider in the Hall of Fame, were to saddle on the first Saturday in May. The last was Rosemary Homeister Jr., in 2003. None ended more than 11.
That should have changed, two years ago, when 50-1 shot Mine that Bird to the barrier of stealing the Derby. Chantal Sutherland had been his regular rider, made him lose two races during a change of trainers, and then presented at the Churchill Downs three days before the race with a promise of one of the owners that it would get the Mount of the great race. He went to veteran Calvin Borel instead.
"I found out about it in the form of race reading," Sutherland said in a Thursday phone interview. "I have never learned the reason." If someone had said, ' we need a jockey with experience. He has already won, ' I would have responded just enough.
"But in General, I was lucky," she added. "There is always the odd person out there who said:" I use it because it is a girl, "but they it sofa usually in some other way, such as" she goes too wide in turns, or do not know how to switch the stick ".".
Napravnik is not likely to get this dreaded call of last minute, in small part because Kelly Breen, who form the pants on fire, might be too afraid to pick up the phone.
"I would rather him on our side that have to run against it.". Do not put this in a bad way, but Rosie is a redhead and she received the fire in his eyes. When she loses, "he said, rolling his eyes,"it is certainly not a happy camper.""
At that time, Breen pause, threw behind him and repulsed, relieved.
"I had to look over my shoulder when I said that," he laughs. "As, is Rosie anywhere close?"
For any which Napravnik seems hardly impressive. 5-Foot-2 and she weighed 111 pounds in full riding gear, with her hair bundled in a nestled bandana under his helmet. It gives frequent fighting with an elder brother to harden its position.
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