Norman Rockwell's famous painting shows
just how small jockeys were in the 1940's.
Football fans who are used to
thinking of gigantic defensive linemen as great athletes may find it difficult to believe that some
of the toughest athletes who ever lived are the shrimpy little jockeys who race thoroughbred
horses. One way these little guys have to be tough is in keeping their weight down to about 115
pounds. Typical top riders have been known to go through a whole racing season eating only a
few leaves of lettuce for dinner every day, and other well-known riders would eat a little real food
every few days but then tickle their throats to get rid of what they just eaten. Since body weight is
mostly water, these riders do everything they can to keep water out of their body. From
spitting every chance they get to exercising under brutal conditions, these little fellows drive
themselves as much as any football player ever has. According to Laura Hillenbrand
(Seabiscuit: An American Legend, New York, 2001), some jockeys "[don] heavy
underwear, [zip] into a rubber suit, [swaddle themselves] in hooded winter gear and woolen horse
blankets, [and then run] aroud and around the track, preferably under a blistering sun."(p. 67)
That sounds like a lot of torture to get rid of water weight, and it also sounds like a way of life
that only a really tough guy could follow. Another way jockeys have to be tough is in meeting the
physical demands of controlling a three-quarter ton horse that runs at an average speed of about
45 miles per hour. According to one rider, "it's a lot like riding down a badly rutted winding road
on the roof of an SUV. Sooner or later you are sure to fall off and hit the hard, hard ground at
speeds about like those of traffic on a main city street." If the horse trips himself or gets tripped
by another horse, the rider falls; if the horse suddenly decelerates, the rider
falls. In most years three or four jockeys are killed outright, and another five or six end up
paralyzed. As another rider put it, "most of us have been hurled more than once into the ground
from about eight feet up in the air while travelling at about 60 feet per second, and then get a
chance to be trampled by as many as thirty or forty galloping hooves. But we're still riding!"
Hey, I know football's tough; but I don't know many football players who could even come close to
having the kind of toughness it takes to make it as a jockey.