Tag Archive for: comparing male and female jockeys

Seeking Value with Female Flat Jockeys

/in /by

The 3.30 race at Goodwood on September 3rd 2024 will be one that Hollie Doyle will cherish for the rest of her life, writes Dave Renham. It was the race where she rode her 1000th career winner on the David Simcock-trained Leyhaimur. In doing so, Hollie became only the second woman to achieve this monumental feat following in the footsteps of Hayley Turner who rode her 1000th winner in November last year (2023).

Horse racing is one of the few sports where men and women compete against each other on a level playing field. One would sincerely hope that by now Doyle and Turner have proven to trainers, punters, bookmakers and fellow jockeys alike that women riders can be as successful as their male counterparts.

Back in January 2021 Matt wrote a piece on the site where he set about trying to answer two questions:

1. Has the sport begun to level the chasmic disparity between male and female rider opportunities? and

2. To what degree is it appropriate to do that based on performance data?

 

His study covered a five-year period from 1st January 2016 to 31st December 2020 and the link to read it is www.geegeez.co.uk/male-and-female-jockeys-a-comparison/.

*

What I plan to do with this article is twofold. In the first part I am aiming to build upon the start of Matt’s research into his question of gender disparity, bringing us up to date over the subsequent four years. In the second part I would like to focus solely on the performance of female jockeys.

Male vs female: Overall Numbers

Firstly, let me share Matt’s findings for all riders in UK flat races between 2016 and 2020, broken down by gender focusing solely on the percentage of rides for each group.

 

 

As the pie chart shows, a whopping 91% of all rides were taken by male jockeys during this time frame. That's an enormous disparity. The question is, have matters improved at all in more recent times? Below is the same male/female percentage comparison but looking at data from 1st January 2021 to 5th September 2024:

 

 

Things have improved but just barely. I wonder if we have seen a year-on-year increase or not? Let’s see:

 

 

From 2021 to 2023 we were heading downwards not upwards. At least 2024 has seen the percentage move in the direction it should be. As can be seen, parity is a long way away and even an 80/20 male to female split seems years, possibly decades, away.

For these figures to change we need to see more Hollie Doyles. What I mean by that is that Hollie has ridden 17% of all the rides given to female jockeys in 2024. That equates to 796 rides out of the 4741 total rides for all female jockeys. Only two other female jockeys have had more than 300 rides this year to date, those being Saffie Osborne on 493 and Joanna Mason on 470. If, say, just another three female jockeys had been given the opportunities this year that Hollie has had (e.g. ridden in nearly 800 races), then the male riders to female riders’ splits would have moved from 88.7% male rides vs 11.3% female rides, to a better, if still badly unbalanced, split of 82.9% vs 17.1%. However, that would still be a solid improvement on the situation in a scenario where just three female jockeys get those better opportunities - and two of them used the lever of family connections to get started. Riders need races to gain experience, and the simple truth is that female jockeys are still not getting enough opportunities.

 

Male vs female: Favourites

Matt’s article also looked at data for favourites in terms of the male rides / female rides percentage splits. From 2016 to 2020 only 6.7% of all favourites were ridden by female jockeys. In the more recent past (2021 onwards) this has improved a little, but only to 8.3%. However, when we look at the overall results (2021-2024) for both groups of favourites we see some interesting findings:

 

 

Strike rates for both are within 0.33% of each other, but female jockeys have offered punters by far the better value. Losses to SP have been 7p in the £ better for female riders compared with the male jocks. Meanwhile the female A/E index is an excellent 0.96 compared with 0.91 for male riders. To Betfair SP backing all favourites ridden by female jockeys would have made a blind profit of £46.97 (ROI +2.6%).

If we examine like for like we get a better idea why the female jockeys have had the best of it on favourites. Most races in this favourite sample have been handicap races (because 71% of flat races in 2024 have been handicaps - and similar percentages apply to the other recent years). 80% of the races where females rode the favourite and 68% of races where males did have been handicap races. And in these handicap races female riders have outperformed their male counterparts. Here are the handicap favourite results for ’21 to ‘24 split by gender of the rider:

 

 

In these like for like races female jockeys have a better strike rate by roughly 1.5%, and they have almost broken even to SP, as compared with losses of 10% for males. The A/E index values (0.97 vs 0.91) also show a value edge for female riders. This represents a still present blind spot in the markets.

Before moving to part 2 of my piece, all the other stat comparisons Matt made in his write-up have similar percentage splits now to what they were then. As an example of this, from 2016 to 2020 25.2% of all apprentice jockey rides came from female riders, from 2021 onwards it stands marginally higher at 26.4%.

We can only hope the next four or five years sees a vast improvement and many more opportunities for female jockeys.

*

Top Female Jockeys: An Overview

At this juncture, it's time to move away from the male vs female rider comparison and focus solely on the ladies. Let me look at the records of the female jockeys who have had the most rides between January 2021 and early September 2024 (ordered by number of rides):

 

 

Hollie Doyle

Hollie Doyle has the highest win percentage but over the years, as her stock has risen, it has become difficult to find profitable angles when backing her. Hollie still performs exceptionally well and is obviously one of the top jockeys in the country; it is just that she has become very popular with punters which makes her expensive to follow generally speaking.

If we go back to the previous two years (2019 and 2020), her ROI was -8% to SP, and you could have secured a healthy £177.24 (ROI +9.9%) if backing all her mounts to BSP. These 2019-2020 figures were achieved with a virtually identical strike rate to what transpired in 2021-2024. Clearly, then, it is this rising popularity in the last four years especially that have driven down the prices on her runners and thus any value has been stifled.

Saffie Osborne

That has yet to happen  - though of course it will do - with Saffie Osborne, as backing all her rides “blind” in the past four seasons would have secured a profit to BSP of £65.98 (ROI +3.6%). In fact, Osborne has produced a blind profit to BSP in each of the last three years.

I am a firm believer that Saffie Osborne, if given the right opportunities, can be as successful as Hollie Doyle in the years to come. She is only 22 and she seems to be going from strength to strength, especially when we consider her yearly performances in terms of the A/E index stat. This stat is one that attempts to establish value where, generally speaking, a figure above 1.00 represents a good value proposition. Here are Osborne’s A/E figures by year:

 

 

As the graph shows her figures have been getting better and better year on year. No wonder she has proved profitable to back to BSP more recently.

Saffie has had an excellent record with horses near the front end of the betting since the start of 2021. Those runners with an SP of 6/1 or shorter have provided her with 162 winners from 653 runners (SR 24.8%) for an SP profit of £40.04 (ROI + 6.1%). To BSP this improves to +£97.50 (ROI +15%). If we extend this to horses priced 14/1 or shorter, she is still in profit to SP to the tune of £31.54 (ROI +2.5%) thanks to 220 wins from 1277 rides (SR 17.3%). To BSP her profits stand at a healthy £207.88 (ROI +16.3%).

I am sure the value on Saffie Osborne’s mounts will soon diminish, especially if continuing this upwards spiral. However, for the moment I think she will continue to offer punters good value.

Joanna Mason

Another female jockey to impress me recently has been Joanna Mason. She primarily rides for the Mick & David Easterby - granddad and uncle respectively - yard and, when we compare her record for this yard with all other jockeys combined, we see the following:

 

 

Her stats are far better than when combining all the other Easterby jockeys in one group. This has also been the case when we compare the results of the more fancied runners from the stable. With Easterby horses priced 9/1 or shorter we get these splits:

 

 

It should be noted that to BSP a blind profit could have been had backing all of Joanna's runners, as well as the subset of those priced 9/1 or shorter.

It is a shame that she has not been given many opportunities from the bigger yards: she has ridden five times for William Haggas including three rides since May this year. She has ridden one winner and had three placed horses so hopefully more rides will come her way from that stable soon.

Hayley Turner

Hayley Turner averages around 400 rides a year these days, down somewhat on the peak of her career when between 2006 and 2012 she averaged 725 rides per year. However, she is still performing well 24 years after her first ride and especially when her horse is prominent in the betting. In the past four seasons on horses with an SP of 4/1 or shorter she has won 81 of her 264 rides (SR 30.7%) for a small £10.76 profit to SP. This equates to a return of just over 4p in the £. To BSP the figures improve to +£28.65 (ROI +10.9%).

David Simcock and Andrew Balding continue to use Hayley on a fairly regular basis and these two trainers have provided her with the most rides in the past four seasons. Both trainers have been rewarded with excellent results:

 

 

Turner has been very close to breaking even for both trainers across all their combination runners, and to BSP she has made a profit of £15.77 (ROI +9.3%) for Balding, and £21.83 (ROI +10.8%) for Simcock.

Josephine Gordon

Josephine Gordon has an overall win strike rate of only 7% across the past four seasons but 58% of her rides have been on horses priced 14/1 or bigger. Hence, she tends to ride lesser fancied runners which explains that low strike rate. However, when we focus on her rides on horses whose prices were 12/1 or shorter at SP her record reads 57 wins from 458 rides (SR 14.6%). These runners have edged into profit at SP to the tune of £2.42. To BSP profits stand at +£64.66 (ROI +14.1%).

While writing this article there has been quite a coincidence because Josephine Gordon has just won at Kempton in the Class 2 London Mile Series Final Handicap on Whitcombe Rocker at 11/1, giving him a brilliant ride from a tough outside stall. Funny how things happen like that!

One to note: Olivia Tubb

To finish up I want to talk about an apprentice who, despite having only 122 rides to date, could be the real deal. Her name is Olivia Tubb, and she is currently apprentice jockey to Jonathan Portman. Her overall record is impressive:

 

Clearly it is early days, but when we examine her record for Portman, she has a 17.7% strike rate producing returns to SP of 26p in the £ (44p to BSP). All other jockeys combined when riding for Portman have won just 7.4% of races losing a whopping 45p in the £.

It is also impressive to note that with horses priced 4/1 or shorter she is 11 from 29 (SR 37.9%) for a profit to SP of £15.24 (ROI +52.6%). Her A/E index stands at a huge 1.55. She should have an exciting future – let’s hope she gets enough chances to prove it.

*

To conclude, there is sadly still a wide opportunity chasm between the chances afforded to male riders as compared to female riders. That needs to change because there is plenty of female talent in the jockey ranks - and the stats I've shared I hope has proved that beyond doubt.

- DR

Male and Female Jockeys: A Comparison

/in /by

Three years ago, in January 2018, Vanessa Cashmore, then a Liverpool University MBA student, published a study into the performance of female jockeys in comparison with their male counterparts.

Cashmore noted in her paper, which covered the period 2003-2016, that female riders were as capable as males when accounting for the quality of mount, but were notably under-represented in the jockey population.

What follows is not a reprisal of that previous work but, rather, a review of progress since. Has the sport begun to level the chasmic disparity between male and female rider opportunities? And to what degree is it appropriate to do that based on performance data?

I've used British flat racing (turf and all-weather) from 1st January 2016 to 31st December 2020, a period of five years. It should be noted that 2020 had three potentially impactful differences from the preceding years:

- Covid caused a cessation of racing for around ten weeks from mid-March to the beginning of June
- Thereafter, jockeys were only permitted to ride at one meeting per day
- Many meetings from June onwards comprised of a greater number of races, replacing a large number of cancelled fixtures

The analysis has been broken down by:

- Overall dataset
- Handicap races only
- 10/1 or shorter only
- Favourites (including joint- and co-favourites) only

And I've further compared all riders with those able to claim 3lb, 5lb or 7lb (i.e. in most cases, apprentices riding against professionals, but also including a handful able to claim in apprentice races, as well as a small number of amateur riders claiming that allowance).

Why? To try to answer the following questions:

Have opportunities for female flat jockeys improved?
Are female flat jockeys taking those opportunities?
Are there any market biases in relation to female jockeys?

By way of comparison, I have opted to use ratios as they are agnostic in terms of sample size and make for easy inspection between years, cohorts and factors.

The Big Picture

Male vs Female Jockeys: Overall numbers

The first table, below, is the superset of data: all riders in UK flat races between 2016 and 2020 inclusive, broken down by gender. This offers an overview perspective - a baseline - for what follows.

The first row, total rides, discloses that male jockeys had 260,005 mounts compared with female jockeys' 25,887 in the five-year study period and, therefore, that male riders had a numerical advantage of 10x.

In terms of wins and places, and therefore win/place strike rates, male jockeys out-performed female jockeys by a greater ratio still.

BUT... none of the above makes any allowance for the quality of those opportunities. In simple terms, if all the better-fancied horses were ridden by men, they absolutely should out-perform women.

The imperfect but credible 'leveller' I've chosen to use in the tables is Actual vs Expected, a betting metric. This metric brings its own baggage in the form of market biases, but that is no bad thing from a wagering perspective, even if less useful when attempting to compare the respective ability levels of male and female riders.

The table relates that male and female riders had identical market performance at starting price when gauged against A/E. Moreover, at Betfair SP, female riders slightly outperformed males.

But that yawning opportunity gap - ten to one in number of rides - is ostensibly deeply concerning. By reviewing the year on year data we can get a feel for whether progress is being made.

The answer, mercifully, is yes. In 2016, male jockeys had 13.31 times as many rides as females; by 2018 the ratio was 9.53 and in 2019 it was 8.33. Last year saw a momentum check, quite possibly due to that triumvirate of Covid, single meeting/less fixture constraints and longer meetings, with the ratio out to 9.11x.

Drilling down

As alluded to, not all opportunities are equal, so what follows attempts to iron out some of those inequalities within the full dataset. First up, handicap races.

Male vs Female Jockeys: Handicaps

Ignoring conditions races and, instead, focusing on races where all horses are rated - and weighted - to have a theoretically equal chance (and ignoring the fact that we all know that this is not true in practice), how do the figures stack up?

We see a narrowing of the gap across all measures: rides, wins and places all show improvement notwithstanding that the improvement comes from an extremely low representative base. This dataset, like the overall superset, makes no account for quality of opportunity, except via A/E. We again see exact parity at starting price and a slight edge to female riders at exchange SP.

But we really ought to more meaningfully account for quality of chance.

Male vs Female Jockeys: Favourites

Lurching from one extreme to the other, this next cut looks at performance on favourites, including joint- and co-favourites, by rider gender in UK flat races between 2016 and 2020.

There is a lot in this. A lot.

Let's begin with the even fewer opportunities that female jockeys had to ride horses sent off favourite in their races; that supports the notion of an inequality beyond mere numerical opportunity but also in terms of the competitiveness of the runners.

Spelling it out, female jockeys were almost 15 times less likely to ride a favourite on the flat in Britain between 2016 and 2020 than their male counterparts. Wow.

The A/E figures are equal where the win strike rate is lower for women, suggesting that even when riding favourites, the odds available on female jockeys' rides are greater.

Male vs Female Jockeys: 10/1 or shorter

This slice is arbitrary to some degree but has loose logic, too. Specifically, it uses the market as an approximation of quality of opportunity, and it provides for a larger sample size than solely focusing on favourites. It is also possible, though hard to validate, that the group includes some horses which ought to be favourite but are discriminated against due to the gender of their rider. [That last statement may merely be unhelpful conjecture on my part.]

The ratio of male to female rides is 11.82, greater than the 10.04 for all rides, and further attesting to the limited opportunities for females on the better horses; or, at least, the horses with perceived better chances.

As a punter, and/or using market metrics as a bellwether of opportunity conversion, we can again see females outperforming males in the betting context for all that that in isolation will lead nowhere but the much-hackneyed poorhouse.

Progress?

Male vs Female, Year by Year, by Rides

The last five years have felt progressive - not always in a good way (erm, is that regressive, then?) - across society as a whole with keen focus being placed on some of the starker inequalities in our midst. Whilst much more needs to be done in most areas, we need also to be cognisant that progress is gradual not instantaneous, and we must further be able to measure that progress. After all, what cannot be measured cannot be managed, as Peter Drucker apparently once wrote.

So how do those numbers look from year to year?

We can see in the above a pleasing progression from the intolerable 2016 inequality to a more understandable - if still likely unacceptable - disparity in the past few years. Again, I'm minded to cautiously overlook the 2020 backward step on the basis of the exceptional circumstances highlighted in the introduction; but if 2021 was to follow a similar pattern it might be that the greater volume of races across a smaller number of fixtures is a barrier to opportunity for some.

Representation across each of the subsets follows a similar trajectory though 2020 is a consistent bump in the road.

Male vs Female, Year by Year, by Wins

It might be argued that the best way to get more rides is to win more races; but how do you win more races if you're not getting more, or better, rides? That's a chicken-and-egg conundrum that macro society is helping to solve, the gender (and many other) prejudices of former generations softening somewhat in our enlightened (at least relatively) times.

The next table shows the ratio of male to female wins under our four conditions. It is again clear that progress - last year aside - has been made, and also that further progress is necessary.

The most pleasing aspect of this might be that the gender ratio of wins aboard favourites is narrowing apace: whether this nods to greater market awareness or greater opportunity or, most likely, a combination of the two, I'm not sure.

 

In spite of the narrowing of the gap it remains difficult to view these data from any other perspective than that there is still an enormous opportunity divide. If that is on one hand slightly disappointing, perhaps even depressing, there is some light.

The Next Generation

Male vs Female Apprentice Jockeys: Overall numbers

One of the constraints of a study like this is that it is trying to hit a moving target. What I mean is that, in 2016, there existed a very large imbalance of men to women in the weighing room. Such an imbalance can only be evened out over time, as the retiring professionals of today - who will, by legacy, be mainly male - are supplanted by the aspiring apprentices of tomorrow who, it is hoped, will represent a more even gender spread.

A feature of apprentice jockeys is that their careers as apprentices are much shorter, generally speaking, than the professional jockeys many will become. As such, the cohort refresh rate is much quicker. In plain English, it is easier to affect a fresh start within the apprentice ranks; and so, if British racing is serious about its claims to want to bridge the gender gap, this is the place where any green shoots should first emerge.

[There is a further question about making the jump from apprentice to professional but, anecdotally at least, the likes of Josephine Gordon, Hayley Turner, Nicola Currie, and the brilliant Hollie Doyle, are making it much easier for those who follow in their footsteps.]

Male vs Female Apprentices: Overall

The headline apprentice opportunity number - rides - has seen roughly one female ride for every three male rides. Whilst in isolation that still seems unacceptably far apart, it must be considered in two contexts. First, the ratio in the overall ranks is 10:1 so 3:1 is a clear uplift on that. Secondly, and the imponderable in terms of a basis for this review, it is unclear how many girls versus boys go to yards and riding schools with the ambition of becoming a jockey.

With blinkers on, it might be hoped that approximately three boys for every one girl head to racing schools/yards because, while the equality issue would remain, the responsibility for addressing it would be upstream of the race track.

As with their senior counterparts, this overall table makes little acknowledgement of the quality of opportunity; though, also as with the previously referenced superset, we can see that female apprentices perform better on A/E metrics. The boys' overall win strike rate is around 8% higher.

Male vs Female Apprentices: Handicaps

It's a similar story when looking exclusively at handicaps. The number of rides ratio has tightened slightly, and female apprentices again outperform male apprentices on A/E metrics. Male apprentices still win at a higher rate than females.

 

Male vs Female Apprentices: Favourites

As we start to use the top of the market as a barometer of opportunity, it sadly reveals that male apprentices are almost four times more likely to ride a favourite than female apprentices. There is absolutely no good reason for that, with girls recording a slightly higher win and place strike rate aboard market leaders and having been profitable to follow even at SP!

 

Male vs Female Apprentices: 10/1 or shorter

Expanding that top of the market cohort out to include all claiming apprentice-ridden horses that started at 10/1 or shorter, we see the numerical opportunity gap truncate from the purely favourites group, though the ratio of 3.34 is still notably higher than the 2.82 of all apprentice rides. In other words, female apprentices are getting less opportunities than male apprentices on the better-fancied runners.

There is barely a hair's breadth between the respective gender win and place rates and, again, female apprentices are more punter-friendly.

 

The Year to Year Apprentice Story

When looking at the jockey gender superset it was noticeable how the opportunity divide had narrowed from year to year. Is the same true of apprentices?

Male vs Female Apprentices, by Rides

This first table has goodish news. 2016 was a vintage year for female apprentices with Josephine Gordon and Hollie Doyle collectively taking more than 900 rides. That helps to explain the skewed starting point, after which there is a gradual improvement year to year in not just the overall ratios but also handicaps and the 10/1 or shorter cohort. Excepting an outlier in 2019 within the favourites group, that too has shown a gradual levelling of the playing field.

Male vs Female Apprentices, by Wins

We now know the key reason that 2016 was an outlier and can focus on the years 2017 to 2020. Within that four-year timeframe, progress - defined as a reduction in the ratio of male to female apprentice wins - has been the general theme. There is a caveat in relation to last year, however, which may or may not be attributable to the unique Covid-dictated situation.

 

Male vs Female Apprentices, by Win Strike Rate

There is another interesting gender-based takeaway from the apprentice group, particularly for most visitors to this website who may primarily view the game through the punting prism.

A figure of 1.00 here means female apprentices win at the same rate as male apprentices. What is most interesting is that, when we look at the sharp end of the betting - favourites or all runners sent off at 10/1 or shorter - the numbers go below 1.00, meaning female apprentices are winning more often when given better (judged by market sentiment) opportunities.

 

Putting that all together, the story is that female apprentices are getting more opportunities than in the earlier part of the study period compared with male apprentices; and, when riding fancied runners, they're successfully converting more of those opportunities.

 

Conclusions

So what does it all mean? In this article I've tried to look at two things in parallel: the respective opportunities afforded to females versus males and, with the betting blinkers on, any wagering utility therein.

What I have absolutely not tried to do is say that one gender is better than the other, or to prove that both are equal. Honestly, I don't feel we have a sufficient balance of data to arrive at meaningful conclusions to that end, nor even what 'better' means. More importantly than that, such generalisations are pointless and stupid: some men are better than most women, and some women are better than most men. At most things, including riding horses. So what? How does that, at a global level, inform anything?

However, what is abundantly clear is that winning opportunities for women riders were pretty poor in 2016 and are still disappointing as we enter 2021. The more heartening flip side is that solid progress has been made during those five years in terms of absolute opportunities and winning opportunities. And, more promising still, there is a group of young female apprentice jockeys, a number of whom look to have the raw ingredients to become the next Hollie Doyle, that are converting their opportunities with regularity.

Hollie is a very tough act to follow but she is also an outstanding blueprint and role model. When she was a seven pound apprentice, she'd regularly make the long trip from the south of England to Newcastle to ride one or two for lesser lights on the trainers' roster like Wilf Storey. Indeed, she twice rode a lovely little geegeez syndicate filly, Table Manners, to victory.

As far back as 2013, she was riding for Wilf. It seems a hundred years ago now, but Hollie rode just six winners between 2013 and 2015, from 99 rides. After scoring aboard McConnell at Southwell on 26th November 2013, her next victory wasn't until 14th July 2014, and the one after that was 10th August 2015. Then, at the start of 2016, came the tie up with Richard Hannon and the associated abundant opportunity.

You have to be very good to make it to the top in this game, man or woman, and you have to work bloody hard!

*

Gender is merely the easiest of racing's representational challenges. It must confront similar demographic disparities around race and sexuality and, in fairness, the industry is paying more than just lip service to that end. It takes time to change attitudes, especially in such a Luddite and legacy sector as horse racing, but the progress by female riders on the flat is testament to the efforts being made. There is a long way still to go.