Years ago I tried to persuade Simon Crisford when he was running Godolphin and I think he was pretty open to the idea, I wanted to make Hayley Turner their second jockey. I said because if you do that, she will win Group One races because we know your second strings often do. I’m sure they’ve given Hayley rides but it was never going to be a permanent arrangement.
I had a really interesting conversation with Annemarie O’Brien when I was over in Ireland about her girls, particularly about Anna who is a really good rider and obviously has had this bad fall and got injured, and I said to her ‘what’s your attitude to your girls turning professional?’.
Clare Balding presenting Channel 4’s Racing coverage. Photo Credit: Carine06, Wikimedia
One of them is actually going to be a vet so that wasn’t going to ever be a possibility, and she said ‘I’d be horrified’. I said ‘Why? Why would you be horrified at your girls turning professional? Both your boys have done. And you could definitely provide the first female jockey to ride the winner of the Derby. You know you could.’ And she went, ‘well I’ve never really thought about it’ and I said ‘But you’re treating them completely differently.
‘You’re telling me if Anna had been born a boy, you’d have no problem with it?’ And then of course I felt terrible because she went and had the fall and got badly injured, but that could have happened to anybody.
It’s interesting the resistance sometimes comes from women. But it comes from within the society. I don’t know. I just don’t know the answer.
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