Female Jockeys

The sport of horseracing was long the preserve of men, at least in terms of those sat in the saddle of the best horses. Women have long played a major role in racing in a range of ways, including as owners, trainers, stablehands and grooms, assistants and, of course, as spectators, not least on Ladies Day.

Alicia Thornton is sometimes credited as being the first female jockey and she rode all the way back in the early years of the 19th century. However, she was not racing under rules and, indeed, women could not compete against the men in official races until 1972. It did not take long for a female jockey to enter the winner’s enclosure, but for a long time it was hard for women to get really good rides and it was far from a level playing field.

Meriel Tufnell: First Woman to Win

Meriel Tufnell was born in December 1948 and at the age of 23 she made history, becoming the first woman to win a race under Jockey Club rules. On the 6th of May 1972 she guided Scorched Earth, fittingly a mare owned by her mother, to victory in the Goya Stakes at Kempton.

Tufnell also took part in the first mixed race (also involving male jockeys) in 1974 and went on to help create the Lady Jockeys’ Association of Great Britain. This was the first organisation of its type in the world and this pioneer was granted an MBE in 1976 having retired from competitive riding in 1974.

Top Active Female Jockeys

Things have changed a lot, as we shall see, even if things are not yet perfect. Here are the best female jockeys active today, while we will also look at some of those who have retired in recent years.

Hollie Doyle

Hollie Doyle is almost certainly the greatest female jockey from the UK who is still riding and probably the best ever if we confine ourselves to the flat-racing game. One half of a racing power couple with husband Tom Marquand (who himself has over 1,500 winners), she boasts various huge wins. She was the first woman to win a French Classic in 2022.

That was an incredible year for Doyle, as she was runner-up in the Flat Jockeys’ Championship – no woman has ever matched that. Amazingly she tied for second with her husband! Like Marquand, she has ridden well over 1,000 career winners, and moved to four figures in terms of British-only wins in March 2025.

Bryony Frost

Bryony Frost emerged as a major force shortly before Rachael Blackmore (see below) and helped pave the way for women in the National Hunt sphere. Riding over jumps is more physically demanding than on the flat and many (men!) believed women didn’t have the strength or even bravery to compete at the very top.

Frost proved them wrong, becoming the first woman to land a Cheltenham Festival Grade 1 contest when she won the Ryanair Chase in 2019. Her partnership with the lovable Frodon also yielded the King George VI in 2020 and the Irish Champion Chase in 2021.

She won the 2019 British conditional jockey’s crown, falling just shy of 50 winners, and many more big successes have followed since. Controversy off the course led to her quitting UK racing and moving to France in 2024. She has now established herself among the best riders in the country and has landed wins on a regular basis, winning almost €1m in her first full season there (in 2025).

Saffie Osborne

Osborne is the daughter of Jamie Osborne, who was leading rider at the 1992 Cheltenham Festival, so racing is clearly in her blood. Born in 2002, her best days hopefully lie ahead but she has already established herself as a real talent on the flat-racing scene. She was the first female to win at Meydan and backed that up with a win in Doha the very next day. Her big victories to date include the Chester Cup, Godolphin Stakes and Bronte Cup. She has also excelled in the Shergar Cup, helping the female team win in both 2023 and 2024.

Star Jockeys of the Past

Tufnell deserves her place in the history books but in the years since she became the first woman to win a race under rules, female jockeys have come on so much. Here are some of the best to have hung up their boots, with most of these having retired from racing relatively recently.

Hayley Turner

Before Hollie Doyle eclipsed her, Turner, born in 1983, was the most successful female flat jockey. She first retired in 2015 but returned to the saddle three years later. Having claimed her 1,000th global win in November 2023, she became the first female jockey to win 1,000 races on British soil in the summer of 2024 before retiring for a second time in spring 2025.

Turner’s talent was clear from a young age and in 2005 she was the joint Champion Apprentice in British flat racing. Three years later she won 100 races in a calendar year, the first woman to manage that feat. She set so many firsts over the course of her career, including being the first woman to ride at the Dubai World Cup meeting, and was awarded an OBE in 2016.

Rachael Blackmore

If Doyle is the female GOAT of UK and Irish flat racing, then Rachael Blackmore is the best-of-the-best when it comes to the jumps game. Indeed, many would argue that Blackmore has even achieved more than Doyle, albeit in a different sphere. The County Tipperary native was born in 1989 and retired with 575 professional winners to her name, but those numbers do not tell the full story.

She surprised many when she announced her decision to retire in 2025 at the young age of 36, and so could easily have gone on to deliver many more winners. However, it is the quality of the races she won that really makes her stand out.

Among a CV any jockey would be ecstatic with, she boasts wins in almost all of the biggest races in the National Hunt game. She has so many incredible firsts to her name, with many of those meaning she is the only woman to have achieved that particular feat. These firsts include:

• First woman to win the Grand National
• First woman to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup
• First woman to win the Champion Hurdle
• First woman to be leading rider at the Cheltenham Festival
• First woman to win Irish Conditional Championship

In all she rode 18 Cheltenham Festival winners, including successes in all four championship contests (she won the Champion Hurdle twice, both times with Honeysuckle). She also triumphed in the Ryanair twice, as well as landing several huge races in Ireland, including nine more big wins with the brilliant mare Honeysuckle.

Lizzie Kelly

Kelly was born in 1993 and first made her mark on the (National Hunt) racing scene when coming a narrow second in a big race in France in 2015. That was aboard Aubusson, and meant she just missed out on becoming the first woman to win a top-tier race in France. Just a month or so later, however, she landed the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase, becoming the first woman to land a British Grade One contest.

Other big successes followed, including in the lucrative Betfair Hurdle in 2016 and the 2017 Betfred Bowl, while she was also the second woman to ride in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. She retired in 2020.

Nina Carberry

Nina Carberry is part of a racing dynasty, being the daughter of four-time Irish Champion Jockey Tommy Carberry and the sister-in-law of Ruby Walsh. She can’t match Ruby’s tally of wins at the Cheltenham Festival but her haul of seven is still impressive. Her first, in 2005, was the first by a female at the Festival in almost 20 years. She won the Irish Grand National in 2011 and rode in the Aintree contest six times, a seventh-place finish in 2010 her best result.

A Notable Mention for US Star Julie Krone

Our focus here is the UK and Irish racing scene but we cannot ignore the incredible numbers of American star, Julie Krone. Born in Michigan she can be seen as the true pioneer of women jockeys and rode a staggering 3,704 winners across a long and brilliant career.

She boasts international wins, as well as success in one of the American Classics, the 1993 Belmont Stakes. She also triumphed at the Breeders’ Cup, winning the Juvenile Fillies race in 2003. She remains, as of February 2026, the only woman to have won one of the Triple Crown races. She competed at the highest level for 17 years and no other woman in the sport anywhere in the world can match her sustained success.