FAIR JOCKEYS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4827, 8 May 1925, Page 4

FAIR JOCKEYS.

HORSEWOMEN TO-DAY.

A NOTABLE EXAMPLE.

Th ice women recently competed in a flat race at Newmarket against male rivals, says the “Daily Mail,’ and occasionally at some hunt point-to-point meeting one finds a solitary woman competitor riding against the sterner sex on equal terms, and one or two hunts have had a ladies’ race on the card.

It is in the districts where riding astride is most popular, such as tlie West of England, that one finds the majority of feminine entries in hunt races. Here and there among the devotees of the cross-saddle one will come across a girl of suitable build and temperament who can hold her

owi: with the good men, not only

across a country in the wake of a pack, but also when the starter’s flag falls.

A good horsewoman in a side-saddle may keep her place in the fastest bin si with hounds, but she would not have the slightest chance in a race against approximately equal animals, for it is a physical impossibility in a side-saddle to ride a horse in the same’way and get as much out of it as in a cross-saddle.

Racing is an entirely different game from hunting, and a brilliant rider to hounds may be quite useless between the flags. The reverse is also sometimes true, although more icrely, but J have known men who were by no means thruisters in the limiting field to bo first-rate race riders. Possibly the caustic was a fear of .the unknown. Out hunting there is so much which must be taken on chance. There may be a quarry, a plough, a flock of sheep, or anything on the far side of every fence, wheheas in racing one knows that everything is clear, Jn a race, besides good horsemanship, the things which count most are a knowledge of pace and the ability to estimate just what the other ridens “have up their sleeves.’’ Experience is valuable in all our work and play, but in few sports, at any rate, has it such an influence on the reisuP. as in race riding. Only experience will make a jockey, and the gi’l who desires to shine between the flags should neglect no opportunity of addign to her store of knowledge of this difficult accomplishment. One of tlie most successful women race riders of recent times in the West of England was Miiss Mary 'Putton, who for several years won every race in which she started on her good pony Larkspur, always competing against men. Miss Tuttou gained her experience by riding almost daily in exercise and training gallops for a well-known trainer of steeplechasers, and her knowledge of pace was. wonderful. She has recently married and gone abroad, and so her opportunities for racing are likely to fie restricted in the future, which fe a pity, for she was an education in herself for any would-be jockey, male or female in her ability to time the finishing effort to a nicety.