Female Jockeys

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nicked rfrom Wiki re weights... i had it in my head that it was about 12 stone, but im rubbish at conversions,so even if there is still a minimum weight, i couldnt tell you!!





The Weight Rule

From the beginning, event horses had to carry a minimum weight of 165 lb (75 kg) (including rider and saddle) during the endurance test, since military horses were expected to be able to carry such weight. Lead weights were carried on the saddle, and the competitor had to be weighed-in with tack immediately following cross-country. The weight was reduced to 154 lb (70 kg) for the 1996 Olympic Games, after a study demonstrated that both the horse's arc over a fence became shallower and the leading leg took a great deal of extra force on landing when the horse was carrying dead weight than when free from the burden. The rule was eventually abolished January 1, 1998. By removing this rule, the stress on the joints and soft-tissue, as well as the chance of a fall, were decreased.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eventing#cite_note-1




as for the distances and speeds,the optimum time/speed for the XC phase at any level depends where you are. at Burghley last year, the course was 6650m, and there were 31 fences. on undulating terrain, the optimum time was 11 minutes 40 secs, giving an average speed of 570m/min. (according to the Burghley website) different places are obviously different, and you will find horses that prefer some courses and conditions, ust the same as you do in racing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eventing#cite_note-1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eventing#cite_note-1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eventing#cite_note-1
 
You cant hit XC fences Warbs - even these days with all the extra safety measures and collapsible bits in the fences.

Eventing must have one of the highest human mortality rates in sport, you cant just kick on and hope you make it over. Its a test of the control and training and fitness of horse and rider - the three diciplines are totally different, and require a massive amount of trust and control between the horse and rider. Dressage is about lightness,training and suppleness, then XC is about jumping fast(ish!),stamina and again,about control and listening, and the showjumping (assuming the horse passes the trot up on the last morning!) is about the horse again listening and being supple enough and well trained enough to cope with the much more flimsy course - which is usually very twisty,needing much more care to go clear round.

(hark at me sounding like i know - nearest ive got to this is a quick dabble in hunter trialls and showjumping, my first dressage test will be at christmas, and the last thing its going to be is controlled and elegant,im sure!!)
 
of course, up till recently there used to be a timed "roads and tracks" and steeplechase phase before the XC - that was miles taken in trot, then a timed run down a line of chase fences,before a 10 minute (i think) or so break before the horse set off on the main XC course.
 
Out of all the diciplines with stamina taken into account. The XC and NH horses are by far the fittest.
 
Thanks Trudi

so 6650 metres = 33 Furlongs and 12 yds
optimum time = 11mins 40secs
this includes no dead weight in the saddle (if I've read the rules correctly?)
 
unless the rider is small and needs weight - yes. A "normal" saddle is much heavier than a racing saddle though (im not aware of any using synthetic saddles (not that a synthetic GP is light in comparison either),though i dont watch to look at all the complicated bits,i just enjoy watching here and there!) - so that would factor in as dead weight Id guess?

so its bit shorter than the Eider,though run over a far more undulating terrain, with 6 more fences (including combination fences,which you dont often get in racing!) Comply or Die (had to sneak him in somewhere-I havent mentioned him for months!!) won the Eider 14 seconds slower than the standard(?) in 8mins 37 seconds, and he was carrying 11st12lb.

dont know if any of those facts help you with your maths, but hope so - youve got me intreagued now, though im not sure a direct comparison is doable - like Kri says, its a bit like apples and oranges!
 
My first reaction is that any jockey who wants to help themselves to the glory of an olympic gold medal? just turn up for the cross country. :blink:

Send for Spotthedifference and JT McNamara - Ireland your chance to steal the show at London 2012 awaits.

This would be like sending a basketball team out to play a netball team - at netball.

On his final run Spothedifference completed Cheltenham cross country in 8.17.50 carrying 11.8. Take the weight off and you've got to be talking under eight minutes. Alright the course is 31F's and involves 32 fences, but he could fall off a couple of times, chase his horse round, remount, make himself a cup of tea, sign a few autographs, draw up his christmas present list and still win!!!!

Nina Carberry? Go for it gal
 
Alright I'll try and take this from memory;

I seem to think I've read somewhere that horses don't speed up significantly once they carry less than 116Ibs, which is about 8st 4Ibs. It's to do hysterisis and cubic capacity as well as the ability to support the weight if the legs don't get there in time etc. In any event, it isn't an exponential linear relationship that follows a perfect regressing schedule. It's more of a concave curve that eventually flattens out.

If Spotthedif is theoretically thrown in by 42Ibs (11.8 to 8.4) then at 4 miles 1L normally equals something like 0.5Ibs, so this would mean 84L's due to carrying no weight. NH horses are normally reckoned to be worth 0.25 secs for 1L (I use 0.20 secs, but since we're dealing with x country races we'll penalises them on the more punitive scale). That's a straight 21 seconds of improvement due to the weight (without taking into account the fact that a professional jockey with their superior conditioning and strength would be worth about 10 secs in the start and finish).

They'd be riding 31F's in about 7.45.00 to 8.15.00. Stick 2F's and an extra fence or two in, and you're still 9 minutes. If the optimum time for Burley is 11.40:blink:

Does anyone know Nina Carberry?
 
trudij said:
You cant hit XC fences Warbs - even these days with all the extra safety measures and collapsible bits in the fences.
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Ah I mised this bit (I read it as can hit) attack of the Krizons I'm afraid :p

Why can't you hit them? do you get disqualified? time penalties? Is it little more than glorified long distance show jumping then? Mind you if you got 4 secs per hit, you could probably hit all 35 incure 2mins 20 secs and still win with plenty to spare in a time of about 11mins 20 secs. In any event, with close to 12st removed from the horses back surely they'd just fly them anyway
 
Theyr'e solid fences, and is one of the reasons why you see the horses legs greased up.
 
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DO - equally disappointing as your regular, misogynistic remarks about female jockeys?

Warbler, you've got a disconcerting fascination for speed, which is possibly why some 10 riders have been killed - usually instantly - by a little too much of it at the obstacles. They're not just 'fences', anyway. The course is a variety of both solid and landscape obstacles - the horses are jumping up and down banks, sliding down slopes, jumping off wooden decks into and then cantering across lakes, leaping over the backs of Toyota pick-ups trucks, in a series of exertions which no NH horse will ever undertake, not even in the Cheltenham x-country.

I'd urge you to watch an event some time, to get an idea of the variety of height, width, offset angles, dual-choice approaches, double and triple obstacles, of the changing terrain which, with the exception of the Taxis fence and the ploughed field, even the Velka Pardubice doesn't offer.

What Trudi means by 'you can't hit XC fences' is that if you do, you come to grief. The obstacles don't move. You don't get away with knocking rigid timber fences, stone walls, trucks, chicken coops, or jumping in and out of 'pig styes' - especially while tackling some right out of water, off a bank, at a right angle, or out of trees in shade and then out into sunlight.

No, XC is not 'glorified' anything. That's why there's a separate showjumping phase, just as there's the high discipline of the dressage phase. There are jumps involved, but certainly not as PtP, NH, or showjumping knows it, because the horses have to deal with a radically changing landscape, as much as the obstacles put in their way.

The idea is to get round in the best possible time without incurring penalties for getting into difficulty, one of the main goals being to not get killed or seriously injured.

You've got to stop thinking that everything is reduceable to just N weight equalling X time!
 
Warbler said:
That was where I was going with it Trudi (and the Pipe example occured to me - but I didn't dare use for fear of getting dragged off into another area).

If this is a sport which hasn't had its outer extremities challenged by way of alternative thinking, preparation, or approach to it, then surely it would be ripe for someone to simply apply disciplines and regimes from a related area and simply take it to another level?

Could someone for instance not start shaving 30 secs off a time simply by riding horses with a more aggresive attitude between fences and look to hit a few at racing speed and simply ping on to the next obstacle?
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Completely agree with this, can't believe how relaxed riders are in between fences, surely someone should just chance it and surely it'd click one day which would make it worth doing for someone.
 
To keep the horse ready to come back on it's hocks so it can get over the next height of obstacle one would assume. Control of striding comes into this, and the fact that XC horses gallop when asked and lengthen and shorten their stride not only makes them fit but also agile. If it's a good rider on top it will all look pretty effortless. If you look at the very good racehorses when they go on and the jock looks to have more finnesse and less effort i.e relaxed in their work, who rides it at home can also have an influence on this.
 
My understanding (and I had to PM Ms Leader on this for an explanation of the phrase, so I do remember what I'm told sometimes you see). Is that one of the reasons cross country riders get killed is because they ride long in the stirrups where as a racing jockey rides short and is thus sprung clear of the fallling horse through a combination of the position they adopt in the saddle allied to the speed they're going. This made sense to me anyway. Given how much faster jocyeys ride than these show jumpers, and how many more horses seem to come down in racing, and that you have more race meetings than 3 day events, you'd expect the fatality rate to be higher here with horses coming down on top of and crushing jockeys. The fact that they do go so much more faster though seems to offer them a greater level of protection, as both horse and jockey seem to be thrown clear of each other.

It's almost as if the slightly unnatural logic of accelerating in a skidding rally car applies, in that in order to regain control and traction you do what seems the illogical thing in order to improve your chances.

I don't think there's anything too wrong with obsessing on speed in a case like this given that the arbitrator of success is the stopwatch (although once again, I stress that for me to obssess on a sport I have zero interest in seems a strange to be accussed of). As JDCF suggests as well, just riding quicker between fences would probably save in the region of 30 secs, and it's not as if they ever seem to get down into a full on 'McCoy drive' at the finish either, (7 or 8 seconds). I've seen horses going to post with a greater sense of urgency than some of these riders attack a course with. There must be a few fences which you'd consider softer options that surely are capable of being taken at racing speed?. Even if you plotted out where these were on a course and made a decision to stick a sequence together where you wouldn't back off at them, and stick a fast section or two in, that could prove decisive at the end. Aintree wouldn't be considered a soft option and is longer than Burley, but even the Grand National course with weight and the attendant problem of being brought down by other horses to negotiate, would be completed in a time 2 and half minutes (about 20% faster) and that's before you legislate for having to run an extra 3 furlongs and carrying dead weight in the handicap.

It half reminds of the Konrad Bartelski principle.

For years Britains great hope used to adorn our Sunday evening TV screens falling down the mountains of alpine Europe, or trailing in last. Then one day he decided he would ski Val D'isere until he fell and see where it took him. Basically he'd thrown off all the conventional orthodoxy of coaching and accepted hand me down logic that had restricted his performance and decided to try something new. The commentator remarked that they'd heard reports he'd been skiing like a "mad man" on the upper slopes just seconds before he came through the first split. The commentator almost went 'bloody hell' as his sector time came up. Konrad was leading!!! He proceeded to ski like a mad man and eventually came second, just failing on his final jump when he lost balance on landing going through the finishing line, and with it a precious few hundreths.

One suspects that it might take someone with a fresh approach who isn't confined by generations of hand me down orthodoxy to simply look at the challenge they're being presented with and think to themselves well this isn't too difficult, I'll do it this way, and in doing so could completely re-write the so called sport by getting A to B faster than everyone else and not really give a damn for earning the purists plaudits of 'jolly well done Virginna, excellent presentation and arc'.

It's all very well saying they aren't like with like comparisons (even I can see that much to an extent) but the times differentials involved for getting a horse from A to B over pretty similar distances and a similar number of obstacles is simply huge, ( about 3mins 25 secs using Spothtedifference as a 14yo) this would be in region of a mile and a half, which on a 4 mile course.

Why doesn't someone get JP McManus to buy up a few 7 or 8 yo's today send them Enda Bolger, to have them ready for 2012 and watch an Irish clean sweep of the Olympic medals

As a matter of interest do they use whips? and if not why?
 
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XC riders get killed due to the angles they fall (nothing to do with stirrups) when or if they or the horse hit those fences it's basically like they have been thrown into a brick wall. If they don't clear the obstacle it aint gonna fall apart and is going to bring them down. If you note most, if not all of those falls are on landing or takeoff for the fence. Most riders do kick on between fences but if they don't get the fence right there gonna go down. No sand or nicely cushioned thick turf to land on either, at least in the XC phase of the event. It seems to me that most falls in flat racing are due to either the stalls or horse's clipping heels. The later would then possibly be another riders error. NH falls appear to be that the horse, as like the previous have been brought down by anothers error, jumping the fences too fast or when the horse is tired. I would hazzard a guess that ability and fitness both play a part in any fall. As with every sport you train, etc. etc. and hope the luck drawn on the day, is yours.
 
If looking at the long term in respect of female jocks the one who I think is going to be the force to be reckoned with is Cathy Gannon.
 
Toobe said:
If looking at the long term in respect of female jocks the one who I think is going to be the force to be reckoned with is Cathy Gannon.
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Now that is a wind up...

Edit:
My immediate reaction (above) may do young Miss Gannon a disservice. She's having a decent season especially on 2yos. However, her record in handicaps is in amongst the ordinary jockeys, and that's where she needs to make her mark to get my attention. She certainly ballsed up - if I can use that expression for a woman jockey - a couple of handicaps in which I've gone against my better judgment and backed her.
 
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She was a very good, and high profile, champion apprentice in Ireland while attached to the Oxx stable. She's had a period in the wilderness since then but she definitely has talent and she's tough. It's good to see her career on the up once more.
 
Looking at the wins per runs ratio, since the 13/07/09 it appears by quick calculation as follows:-

Gannon - 5 from 19 runs
Turner - 4 from 26 runs
Milczarek- 0 from 21 runs

I realise these are from only a small period of recent form, but as a picked at random and if they were used as a base example I think it pretty much looks that way.
 
Look at the class of horses females are riding, I think you'd be hardpressed to find an average OR of over 65
 
Which shows they're not being given oppotunity. A ladies series would, could and should open up that frame of competition.
 
If only we had a system of racing where horses' chances are equalised on the basis of their ratings...
 
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