- The first woman jockey was Alicia Meynell of England. She first competed in a four-mile race in York, England in 1804.n In 1906 Lula Olive Gill became the first female jockey to win a horse race in California; later that same year, Ada Evans Dean rode her own horse to victory after her jockey had become ill. Indeed, Dean won twice — in spite of never having raced before.

- Kathy Kusner mounted a successful legal case in 1968 to become the first licensed female jockey in the US. Since the age of 16, she had been regularly winning unrecognised flat and timber races. As a licensed jockey, she rode races up and down the eastern seaboard and Canada and became the first licensed female jockey to ride races in Mexico, Germany, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Panama, South Africa, and what was then Rhodesia. She was also the first woman to ride in the Maryland Hunt Cup. ABC Television filmed an award-winning documentary in Saratoga about her being the first woman in modern times to ride in a steeplechase at the racetrack.

- Female riders are so much a part of New Zealand's racing scene now that it's hard to imagine racing without them. And at a time when women hold the highest positions in the country, it's hard to believe that women won the right to hold professional jockey licences in New Zealand only 24 years ago.

Trivia

- During the late 1960's and early 1970's women were allowed to ride in non-betting races reserved especially for them with names like Powder Puff Derby, but the (male) racing administrators of the time proved very reluctant to go any further than that.

- Linda Jones of Cambridge was the first woman to apply for an apprentice jockey's licence, in September 1976. She was refused, on the grounds that she was "too old, married and not strong enough." This was despite the fact that she had won the inaugural Qantas International Women's Handicap at Rotorua and was considered by many people to be the best female rider in the country.

- The first woman to ride against male jockeys in a New Zealand betting race was Joan Phipps and she made the most of a memorable occasion by riding Daphalee (a mare, of course!) to victory in the Te Hinemoa Handicap at Te Awamutu on November 1, 1977.