Women 'face glass ceiling' in horse racing

The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) says women account for 12 percent of all licensed jockeys

Irish trainer Jessica Harrington celebrates after winning the Gold Cup with her runner Sizing John on the final day of the Cheltenham Festival horse racing meeting on March 17, 2017

London (AFP)

Jessica Harrington and Lucinda Russell trained the winners of the Gold Cup and Grand National last season but a new report suggests women face a struggle to succeed in racing.

And this despite women vastly outnumbering their male counterparts in taking up a racing job after a college course by a ratio of 70 to 30.

The study, seen by the BBC, was compiled by Women in Racing (which seeks to develop the profile of women in the sport), researched by Oxford Brookes University, and funded by the Racing Foundation charity.

British Horseracing Authority's (BHA) figures show women account for 12% of all licensed jockeys, but just 6% of all rides and only 1% of rides in the very top races.

Lizzie Kelly's stunning Grade One victory at the Grand National Festival provided a rare highlight for women jockeys last season.

Kelly, though, in a scenario unlikely to happen to her male rivals, was subjected to explicit images of her being leaked and passed round racegoers hours before she rode in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The chasing blue riband was a race she targeted to ride in from a very young age as a career ambition to overcome sexism in the sport.

The report recommends an independent diversity steering group for racing.

"The report shows what you would hear anecdotally from people in racing," said Women in Racing committee member Susannah Gill.

- stagnation -

"I think sometimes racing is seen as a conservative sport and people haven't openly shared their views," she continued.

"If you look who is on the senior boards of organisations in racing, the average is 16% women and we have several boards which don't have any women at the top level at all.

"So we're seeing a stagnation of career progression.

"That's something we certainly recognise in other industries as well, and I think we've probably known about it in horse racing.

"But this report is the first time we've seen it and talked about it."

Gill, who is also a director at Arena Racing Company which owns 15 British racecourses, compared the inertia in racing to the progress being made in other sports, especially those who receive funding from the state as that puts them under pressure to do something.

"Most other sports, certainly those which receive public and lottery money, have already done this piece of work and are at the next stage," said Gill.

However, trainer Amy Murphy, who is one of just eight women out of the 75 trainers based in English flat racing headquarters Newmarket, believes things are improving.

"Not so much now, definitely that's probably what used to happen," she told the BBC when asked if owners would trust a man more than a woman to train for them.

"But I think it's a much more open sport now. Women are doing great things. Five years down the line, there shouldn't be that question."

Nearly 400 people at all levels of racing took part in the study -- the first of its kind in the sport -- of which almost 80% of respondents, all anonymous, were female.