Diane Crump: A Horse-Racing Pioneer's Life in the Saddle

In 1968, a few women, mockingly labeled “jockettes” by a skeptical press, had begun demanding the right to apply for jockey licenses, citing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination in hiring based on race, religion, sex, or national origin. Most of their applications were rejected by racing’s bureaucracy, which alleged that women were unqualified to participate due to “physical limitations” and “emotional instability.” Female jockeys who attempted to ride met with boycotts by male jockeys. Onto this uneven terrain stepped 20-year-old Diane Crump, who had long since demonstrated her riding proficiency during a thousand workout rides on a thousand difficult Thoroughbreds (“I basically got on all the horses that no one else wanted to ride"). On February 7, 1969, having been granted a permit to ride at Florida’s Hialeah Racetrack, Crump, surrounded by a protective phalanx of police officers, walked calmly toward the saddling enclosure as she endured heckles from the crowd. Diane’s mount would not earn victory that day, but the young rider had earned a more fundamental prize: the right to compete in her chosen field. Just over a year later, on May 2, 1970, after 95 years and 1,055 all-male entrants, Diane Crump shattered tradition by becoming the first woman to ride in the Kentucky Derby. Over her career she amassed 235 wins. InDiane Crump: A Life in the Saddle, veteran turf writer Mark Shrager relies on Crump's own narrative, magazine and newspaper coverage, and numerous first-hand interviews to tell the story of an extraordinary athlete's life and career.

About the Author :
Mark Shrager has published some 300 articles about every aspect of horse racing in magazines such as Turf & Sport Digest, American Turf Monthly and others. His 1974 Turf & Sport Digest article, “1,001 Surefire Ways to Lose a Horse Race,” was published in the annual Best Sports Stories anthology. He is the author of The Great Sweepstakes of 1877: A True Story of Southern Grit, Gilded Age Tycoons, and a Race That Galvanized the Nation (Lyons, 2016).He lives in Altadena, CA.

Review :
"Diane Crump’s career as a jockey was a catalog of 'firsts'—the first woman to ride in a race at a recognized track in the United States, on February 7, 1969, at Hialeah; the first woman to ride two winners in a single day; the first woman to win a stakes race; the first woman to have a mount in the Kentucky Derby. Remarkably, it has taken a half-century for someone to write a comprehensive biography of this ground-breaking rider. Mark Shrager’s chronicle of the remarkable woman who shattered horse racing’s glass ceiling finally remedies that oversight." --Milt Toby, award-winning author and turf historian whose latest book is Taking Shergar: Thoroughbred Racing’s Most Famous Cold Case "We cannot think of today’s hardworking female jockeys without paying honor to Diane Crump. She broke through the glass ceiling and helped pave the way for thousands of dedicated, strong women that made horse racing their profession. In this book, Mark Shrager tells Diane’s extraordinary story with a biographer’s attention to detail and a racing aficionado’s appreciation for his subject. I would recommend this book to anyone, sports fan or not, seeking to learn about a history-making woman’s unstinting – and endlessly fascinating – effort to live her dream. --Jason Neff, director/producer of the documentary, JOCK, on female jockeys "Becoming a jockey is no small task. It is hard, indescribably hard. Diane Crump was my idol before I became a jockey, and she still is. She paved the way and made my career possible, despite facing prejudices, sexism and verbal abuse. I can’t even imagine how hard it was, and what Diane had to endure just to ride against men who didn't want her there. She was like me, a girl who loved horses and just wanted to ride races. Where did she possibly find the inner strength to do what she did?" --Andrea Seefeldt, winning rider in 605 races, including 38 stakes wins, and the second woman to ride in both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness