With the stress of distance learning wearing on teachers and students in Kentuckiana and across the country, Kentucky Derby Museum is thrilled to give 40 teachers and their classrooms a free virtual field trip.
It is tradition for schools across Kentucky and Southern Indiana to visit the Kentucky Derby Museum for an annual field trip to explore the grounds of world-famous Churchill Downs, interact with two floors of Museum exhibits, and participate in educational programming. Now, the Museum is expanding its passion of teaching students about the history of the world's greatest horse race to classrooms across the country!
Forty teachers will receive a free virtual field trip which includes:
-Kentucky Derby related education program of his or her choice
-Churchill Downs All-Access Student Tour
-Kentucky Derby Museum Exhibits Tour
-Question and Answer Session
In a typical year, the Museum sees over 15,000 students a year on field trips. Due to the pandemic, the Museum's Education Team has not been able to conduct its highly sought after in-person field trips and has missed interacting with students inside the Museum and on tours at Churchill Downs. Virtual field trips have been an excellent way for the Education Team to connect with students and teach about the rich history of the Kentucky Derby.
To enter, teachers need to fill out this form online. Kentucky Derby Museum will choose at random, 20 local teachers from the Kentucky and Southern Indiana area, and 20 teachers from across the country.
As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization feeling the economic effects of the pandemic, this giveaway has been made possible through generous donors of the city-wide Give for Good Louisville campaign this past fall, benefitting a number of local non-profit organizations.
Why study the Kentucky Derby?
The Kentucky Derby is important to study as the oldest continuously held sporting event in the United States. It is a cultural event, drawing over 160,000 people around the world with tens of millions of people watching on television. It is Kentucky's signature event, replete with traditions, legends and icons. It is a major economic event, with a $217 million impact on the region. The Museum's Education Team also helps students understand the roles of everyone involved in the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing, including the horse, jockey, trainer, veterinarians, and grooms. The Education Team also teaches about the diversity involved in the Kentucky Derby's history, from female owners, trainers and jockeys to the African American jockeys who dominated the early days of the sport, and the Hispanic, Asian and Middle Eastern populations who also contribute greatly to the Derby story. The Education Team's work is made possible by generous donors and with support from University of Louisville, Equine Industry Program and Godolphin KIDS. All Museum educational programs are tailored to meet Core Academic Standards.
The start of Global Campaign in this weekend's Breeders' Cup Classic will bookend co-owner Sagamore Farm's involvement in horse racing under current farm owner Kevin Plank. Plank told The Baltimore Sun this week that the farm in Maryland's horse country will sell most of its remaining horses by the end of the year and be shifted to the production of corn and rye to support Sagamore Spirit's rye whiskey.
A few retired horses will remain on the property as a tribute to its long history as a cradle of top Thoroughbreds.
Plank, former CEO of the fitness apparel company Under Armour, purchased the property in 2007, at which point it had fallen into disrepair. Vanderbilt had sold the property to developer James Ward in the late 1980s and Ward quickly became overwhelmed by the costs of a commercial breeding operation and shuttered it. Plank spent considerable funds restoring the barns and fence lines to their former glory.
Under Plank's watch, Sagamore won the 2010 Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf with Shared Account and is breeder of last year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Sharing.
Plank told the Sun his departure from the sport was nothing to do with racing, but due more to a lack of time to put into the operation. Under Armour's stock has taken a hit in recent years following an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department into some of its accounting practices.
Sagamore co-owns Global Campaign with WinStar Farm. Plank told media he plans to be at the races this weekend to watch the Classic.
This is the final installment in a four-part series examining the arrival of female jockeys in American horse racing – why and how they broke in to the sport when they did, and how racing has reacted. In this fourth edition, we question how far gender equality in the jockey's room has come.
This series is sponsored by the Kentucky Derby Museum, which will open its Right To Ride exhibit on Oct. 16. The exhibit marks the 50th anniversary of Diane Crump's historic ride in the Kentucky Derby in 1970, when she became the first female jockey in the race. You can learn more about the exhibit and access current COVID-19 safety protocols for Museum visitors here.
After over 50 years of women riding as professional jockeys, how does the general public today, in the 21st century, feel about female jockeys? Although blatant examples of sexism and discrimination are now the exception rather than the rule, there are other, more subtle, examples of discriminatory behavior that still exist.
When Kathy Kusner originally applied for her racing license, she was faced with multiple arguments as to why she shouldn't be riding. They ranged from her riding ability to her ability to quickly respond to a dangerous situation. The bottom line in those arguments was that women were physically unsuited to race riding. However, in the May 30, 2017 issue of Socius magazine, Dr. Paul von Hippel presented an article titled Gender and Weight among Thoroughbred Jockeys: Underrepresented Women and Underweight Men.
The article puts forth the argument that sexual discrimination actually damages health by excluding those who are most physically suited to riding. Men are generally heavier, and therefore must endure at times dangerously rigorous weight loss procedures. Excessive time in a sweat box, dangerously low calorie intake, and purging are all common occurrences among the male jockey colony. Those activities are also proven to reduce a rider's alertness and diminish the ability to make rapid decisions during a race. But women, who are naturally smaller, can maintain a healthier weight-to-height ratio than their male counterparts. They can maintain their racing weight without subjecting their bodies to the long-term stresses of excessive dieting. Von Hippel's research indicates to us that women may be better physically suited to horse racing.
As with all research, the results are not one-sided. Hippel's article also brings forth multiple facts regarding the suitability of men and women in racing. Maintaining a crouched position requires increased flexibility, which favors women. He also notes, the sport's “quick pace and crowded fields reward quick reaction time, which favors men.” In 1995 Paul Grimes and Margaret May, in their article “Career Winnings and Gender in Thoroughbred Racing,” noted that women in low level races produce slightly better results than men when comparing similar mounts.
Are contemporary female jockeys treated differently than men? In her interview on 60 Minutes in Napravnik related instances where she had been intimidated by male riders when she started out.
“They would try to intimidate me in the races, put me in a tight spot up against the rail or in between two horses,” she said. “It's something I've had to go through more than once.”
Was Napravnik's experience unique? In her interview on NPR's Fresh Air in 2014, Donna Barton Brothers related that there was little true intimidation. As she explained it, what appears to be intimidation is more strategizing during the race; the testing of the other horses and vying for positions. Is intimidation, both on the track as well as off, isolated to men against women? Of course not. Can we ever forget (try though we may) the altercation between Calvin Borel and Javier Castellano after the 2010 Breeder's Cup Marathon?
Is there still a preconceived idea, then, for the proper place for women in racing? As noted by Deborah Butler and Nickie Charles in The Sociological Review (2012), a peer reviewed journal, trainers in England initially had an ulterior motive when they brought women up through the ranks. Although women apprentices were in the majority, women professionals were in the minority. For many trainers, “the main aim was to produce hard working and conscientious stable lads who could care for the horses in training.” A study completed in 1994 found that women held 41.6% of the jobs in trainer's yards, while 17.11% of the apprentice jockeys were female, and even fewer were jockeys.
A 2002 study by Rebecca Cassidy in the British Journal of Sociology noted that British trainers believed “male stable hands are more ambitious, and females more nurturing and conscientious in their work in the stable.” One trainer said, “You know what lads are like, they want to be jockeys day in and day out, so we stick to girls, they really care about the horses and do a good job.”
Once women are on the track, are they then considered equal to men? Although women have been historically under-represented in different fields, horse racing is one of the few sports where men and women compete in the same event. What happens when society underestimates the ability of women to compete effectively, that is, to perform the tasks of their job? As always, horse racing can provide us with an example. In 2015 Alasdair Brown and Fuyu Yang wrote a paper in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. In that paper, based on racing in Britain and Ireland, researchers presented information that proved the market (the bettors) consistently underestimated the ability of women to complete their job (ride their horse). This is not unlike similar analyses of the stock market valuation of companies with female CEOs. All other factors being equal, companies with a female CFO are generally valued lower. The stock market is basically a wager on the outcome of an investment – a wager. Whether in the role of corporate leader or piloting a Thoroughbred, the general public consistently has lower expectations of women.
With more women entering racing as jockeys, as well as the rest of working society, how is that trend viewed? In 2013 jockey Kayla Stra was banned from the jockey's room at the old Hollywood Park because she was nursing her newborn. Stra's agent, when discussing her comeback to racing, noted: “I think she could make some big money if we get her on decent horses. People overlook her, maybe because she's a woman, but she always finishes strong. You could make a lot of money betting on Kayla Stra.”
Kayla Stra rides King Ledley at Del Mar
That her agent might even suggest that her sex could be an issue tells us that, with all the progress, there might still be an issue.
“The landscape of horse racing is certainly very different now, and women encounter fewer barriers to becoming equine professionals than they did 50 years ago, yet there's still a lack of active, highly-successful female jockeys at the top level of racing,” said Jessica Whitehead, curator of exhibits like Right to Ride at the Kentucky Derby Museum. “I still don't have a great answer for why, but I suspect it has something to do with the lasting effect of any kind of discrimination. Just because opportunities are available doesn't mean that systemic change has occurred.”
By the end of the 20th century, almost half the American work force was female. In fact, as noted by Nancy F. Cott in her book Public Vows, “Not depending on men to provide their economic support, three quarters of all women were in the labor force, including more than 60 percent of married mothers of children under six.”
One of the issues raised early during the time when women began to venture outside the household, including their foray into professional race-riding, was the impact it would have on the children. An overarching concern was that women would be neglecting their all-important roles as mothers. The importance of maternal care is vital, and the argument is valid and supported by research, yet cannot, by itself, be seen as the beginning and end of successful child rearing.
Stephanie Coontz, in The Way We Never Were, stated, “Several studies show that it is a woman's degree of satisfaction with either the housewife role or paid work, and the continuity of her experience when she does work, that best correlates with positive outcomes in her children.”
The role of women in horse racing is nothing new, as for decades they have performed all of the hands-on tasks of Thoroughbred care: groom, hot walker, assistant trainer, and exercise rider. Wealthy women used their financial muscle to squash any resistance from men. But for women to become licensed and even accepted as professional Thoroughbred jockeys required a societal shift in our perceptions of women and their abilities. Historians always warn people not to play “what if” games with historical events. However, if we had not begun to experience a radical societal change in women's rights and women's expectations in the 1960s, women's route to success as jockeys would most certainly have had a different outcome.
David Beecher has a master's degree from Shippensburg University and a PhD from Penn State, where he is currently a lecturer. Dr. Beecher's research and teaching interests are American history with an emphasis on Early American and Civil War History. His dissertation explained the role of Thoroughbred racing in the Antebellum South.
In a special online event on Oct. 12, 2020, exactly 100 years to the day after Man o' War and Sir Barton competed in a match race at Windsor's Kenilworth Park, the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame named Man o' War its 2020 Legend Honouree. The announcement was the culmination of a week-long social media campaign celebrating the original Big Red's monumental win which placed an emphatic exclamation mark on his remarkable career.
What some have called 'the greatest day in Canadian horse racing' the Kenilworth Gold Cup took place in Windsor, Ontario, Oct. 12, 1920, when the two biggest names of the day competed in a historic match race.
The immortal Man o' War, holder of more records than any other horse and the leading 3-year-old of 1920 was owned by Samuel D. Riddle of Philadelphia, and Sir Barton, the Canadian-owned champion of the older-horse division and America's first Triple Crown winner in 1919 owned by Commander J. K. L. Ross of Montreal faced off to settle the supremacy of the North American turf.
Man o' War, was the prohibitive 1-20 favorite, with bettors wagering a reported $220,000 on the race organized by the track's operator, Mr. Abe Orpen and considered a major coup in a time Canadian racing needed a boost following the government's wartime ban on betting in 1918 and 1919. It was a highly anticipated event that would become the first horse race filmed from wire to wire, with the footage later shown in movie theaters across the continent.
Originally proposed as a contest that might also feature a third great racehorse of the time, Exterminator, the terms of the race at 1 1/4 miles and a weight-for-age format was not to the liking of Exterminator's owners so he was not entered resulting in a match race between Man o' War and Sir Barton. The two competed for a $75,000, winner-take-all purse with accompanying Gold Cup, designed by Tiffany & Co and valued at $5,000. That same trophy was later donated to Saratoga Race Course by Mrs. Riddle, the wife of Man o' War's owner and is now known as the Man o' War Cup, presented each year to the winner of The Travers Stakes.
Following the race the Canadian Sportsman and Live Stock Journal carried a photo of Man o' War on the cover of its Oct.18, 1920 issue accompanied by a caption reading “MAN O' WAR – Winner of the $75,000 race at Windsor on Tuesday, Oct. 12, defeating Sir Barton in a most decisive manner and showing himself to be a wonder horse”.
Man o' War's race at Kenilworth Park was his final career start and win, something that was repeated by Exterminator and a later “Big Red”, Secretariat who also concluded their careers with wins at Canadian tracks.
The recognition bestowed on Man o' War exactly 100 years to the day after his win on Canadian soil became possible when the Directors of the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame expanded eligibility to the Hall to include those who have significantly impacted Canadian racing. Since that decision, such greats as Secretariat, Dahlia and the venerable Dan Patch have all been honoured by the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.
