‘A Hardheaded Little Nobody With a Dream’

Ms. Crump after a race at Churchill Downs in 1970. Credit… Associated Press. [New York Times caption and illustration]

“I never worry when I ride.”

(Diane Crump, age 21)

Many male officials considered women to lack the strength and composure to control a thoroughbred as it galloped along at 40 miles an hour.

It was an era in which aspiring female jockeys were often dismissed as “jockettes.” Six male jockeys withdrew from her first race and were replaced. “I didn’t care how the jockeys felt,” Crump told her biographer… “I figured they had to get over it.”

Crump, who later operated a sales service for horse buyers and provided her dachshunds as therapy dogs for the ill and the needy, described herself “as a hardheaded little nobody with a dream that I wouldn’t let die… Galloping a great racehorse gives you a powerful feeling,” she told The Times. “I gave all the horses I rode my heart, and they gave me theirs.”

(Jeré Longman, “Diane Crump, First Woman to Ride in Kentucky Derby, Dies at 77,” New York Times, 1-2-26)

About JMN

I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day. I like to read and memorize poetry.

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