She’s Not Just Along for the Ride

There are some things a nice girl doesn’t do. Chew tobacco. Smoke cigars. Mud wrestle. Shoot craps. Deal blackjack. Run a tugboat.

Or ride racehorses.

Like to see your daughter atop a 20-1 shot in the stretch at Ak-Sar-Ben, would you? Whipping him left-handed?

You’d want to go up to her and say, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” Or “For this I sent you to dancing school?”

You look at Julie Krone and after your first thought about what she’s doing in this all-male cast, you notice she’s an athlete. But you wonder if she might be a gymnast. You know, one of those big-eyed, spring-stepped young dolls who keep going down sawhorses on their toes and doing back flips at the end.

Krone is gymnastic, all right. She spends her life on the backs of ill-tempered, heavily muscled 1,100-pound bullies who would, if they had their way, toss her in a heap in the infield. It’s no job for anyone who uses eye shadow or wears skirts or speaks in a voice an octave below a hummingbird.

It’s a job for a baritone who positively needs a shave twice a day. Horse jockeys are usually guys who talk out of the sides of their mouths, cuss a lot, spit when the spirit moves them. They spend their lives either on horseback or in sweatbox torture chambers, losing pounds. They’re more conscious of their figures than chorus girls. They’re never more than a chocolate eclair away from eating their way off the racetrack.

They’re very strong. The contest between jockeys and horses is the most uneven in sports. The horses have a thousand-pound pull in the weights. And it is a contest as surely as Ali-Frazier III was a contest. The last thing in the world a horse wants to do is what the rider wants him to do. A horse runs to the finish line fast for the same reason a guy runs from a posse--fear. It was always supposed this was a man’s work. Women were supposed to be homecoming queens, chorines. If one got on a horse it was on a bridle path, not in a Derby. If a girl wanted to get in sports, she got a tennis racket, not a whip.

Oh, women might tend bar, mine coal, steer trucks, anchor the news. But when it came to horses, trainers seemed to be afraid they would want to feed them sugar, pet them, adore them, turn them into spoiled brats. A horse rider had to have a lot of top sergeant in him.

If women didn’t belong in a horse race at all, they certainly didn’t belong in a Kentucky Derby. A Derby is often the equine version of Dempsey-Firpo. It takes a tough horse--and a tougher rider. The stewards look the other way when the infighting starts. One year, two riders came down to the finish line whipping not the horses but each other.

There have been more than 1,000 riders in the Derby but only four females. Their records are not impressive. Diane Crump was 15th in 1970, Patricia Cooksey, 11th in 1984, Krone 15th in 1992 and Andrea Seefeldt last and beaten by 16 lengths by the next-to-last horse in 1991. She could have done better on foot.

Saturday, Krone becomes the first female rider to be asked back. She rides the 12-1 shot Suave Prospect. This will be only the second Derby in history to have both a female horse, Serena’s Song, and a female rider in the field.

The four-legged filly is a co-favorite. The two-legged filly is not so flattered. After all, three female horses have won this thing. No female rider has ever even led it.

But, wait a minute! In June of 1993, Julie Krone did something thousands of male riders have never done. She won a Triple Crown race. She brought Colonial Affair home in front in the Belmont. And she has won almost 3,000 other races.

But what gave Krone the ultimate respect of the racing fraternity was a race at the Meadowlands in November of 1989. She didn’t win. She fell.

Horses ran over her, hoofs clipped her and, as she lay in a fetal position, she had a shattered arm, a warped shoulder and elbow and wrist injuries that put her on the operating table for 4 1/2 hours and out of racing for five months. When she got off the table, she had a plate for a left arm and so many screws she clanked when she ate.

The racing crowd saluted when Julie Krone got back on a horse and resumed her career. She was now officially a jockey. She was like a fighter who gets up.

Actually, Krone had always been a tough, aggressive competitor. If she were a man, her nickname would be Rocky. She once pushed another jockey, male variety, into the jocks’ room whirlpool. You cut her off at your peril.

She’s 31, 4 feet 10, 100 pounds, blue eyes and blonde hair. Sharon Stone gets the part if they make her into a movie.

She has made race riding as respectable a profession for women as being a movie star. She once rode six winners in a day at Monmouth Park.

On Saturday, she’d like to win only one. The eighth at Churchill Downs. It would be one of the great days for women since they got the vote. She would not only be the greatest female jockey of the day but the greatest of the day, period.

And in the 21st Century, some writer will be marveling about the one male in the starting gate. Taking over a woman’s job.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Kentucky Derby Field

Horses listed in order of post position for the 121st running of the Kentucky Derby today at Churchill Downs:

PP Horse Jockey Odds 1 Dazzling Falls Garrett Gomez 20-1 2 f-Knockadoon Chris McCarron 12-1 3 a-Pyramid Peak Herb McCauley 20-1 4 Wild Syn Randy Romero 15-1 5 a-Jambalaya Jazz Craig Perret 20-1 6 Suave Prospect Julie Krone 12-1 7 Eltish Eddie Delahoussaye 12-1 8 f-Lake George Shane Sellers 12-1 9 f-In Character Chris Antley 12-1 10 Jumron Goncalino Almeida 10-1 11 Talkin Man Mike Smith 7-2 12 Afternoon Deelites Kent Desormeaux 9-2 13 b-Serena’s Song Corey Nakatani 5-2 14 Tejano Run Jerry Bailey 10-1 15 b-Timber Country Pat Day 5-2 16 Thunder Gulch Gary Stevens 12-1 17 f-Ski Captain Yutaka Take 12-1 18 f-Mecke Robbie Davis 12-1 19 f-Citadeed Eddie Maple 12-1

a-John C. Oxley-owned entry.

b-Wayne Lukas-trained entry.

f-mutuel field Weights: Serena’s Song 121 pounds, others 126