The physical drain of riding horses

Most people agree that the life of a jockey is a difficult one.  There are a handful that rise to the top, and do extremely well out of the Sport of Kings.  The vast majority however struggle with their weights, and do their best to avoid and/or overcome injury.  Anyone who has ever been pelted off a horse would know that it doesn't tickle!  And of course the older you get, the more it hurts!  We used to fang around on our ponies, bareback, in headstalls and leadropes, never wearing a riding hat.  Completely fearless, and I am sure that on the odd occasion I parted company with my horse, I used to bounce.  In fact I rarely used to fall off, unless the horse came down as well, I guess all those years of galloping around bareback meant my balance and ability to swing my body with the horse was pretty good.  I'd like to say that I could still ride the same, but age and the maturing mind catches up, and you start thinking of the consequences of 'what if I come off', which at age 16 never entered your mind!

Jockeys have to put up with riding flighty, temperamental, and often green horses that are as likely to shoot off at right angles as go straight.  Sometimes they can travel with the horse, other times they get pitched off.  And of course if the horse itself comes down, either through injury or interference, they stand little chance of a soft landing.  Racing in a tight field is fraught with danger, as the tragic death this week of young Qld jockey Corey Gilby clearly indicates.  And as if this isn't enough, the toll on the body of the endless wasting, to get down to unrealistic weights, takes such a strain on the body.  I realise that we are all showing the signs of ageing and that none of us look like we did 15 years ago.  However I would maintain that the ageing affect on jockeys is accelerated by the constant wasting and dieting that they have to endure. 

I was searching for photographs today, and came across this picture.  It was taken in March 2000, after he'd won the Kewney Stakes on a filly called Umaline.

Fast forward 11 years.  This is the same jockey after winning the Caulfield Cup on Southern Speed on 15 October 2011.  His name is Craig Williams.  He's able to ride light, and is one of the successful ones, albeit having his ups and downs.  But he's won a Golden Slipper, a Cox Plate (2 actually now), and a Caulfield Cup, and came within a whisker of adding the Melbourne Cup this year when booked to ride Dunaden, but suspended after a ride at Bendigo.  Dunaden duly won the Cup, with Williams sitting on the sideline after his appeals were unsuccessful.  Only 11 years on, he's still got the big smile, but the fresh faced jockey is a thing of the past.  I challenge anyone to tell me that he's not aged more quickly than had he not been forced to subject his body to such fierce wasting.  And why?  I just don't get why they cannot raise the weights.  After all, no other equestrian sport insists that you have to weigh 50kg to be able to ride in an event!