Women in Racing: In Their Own Words

Women currently occupy a wide variety of extremely significant roles in Thoroughbred racing. Their presence and influence are apparent in every aspect of the sport, which is remarkable when one recalls that hardly more than a generation ago racing was still—as it had been for centuries—almost completely dominated by men. Where did these women come from? What prompted them to penetrate this male bastion and seek such vocations as jockey, trainer, owner-breeder, television commentator, veterinarian, photographer, track official, clocker, chart caller, pari-mutuel clerk, and groom?

In Women in Racing, John and Julia McEvoyprovided the answers by interviewing eighteen women whose backgrounds ranged all over the socio-economic spectrum, from the landed gentry to former migrant worker, with a rich layer of twenty-first century Americana in between. Donna Barton Brothers, Barbara D. Livingston, Zoe Cadman, and others tell their stories and affirm that they were driven by a shared passion: a love of horses and Thoroughbred racing. This updated edition includes an interview with horse-racing pioneer Diane Crump, the first woman to ride in the Kentucky Derby.

John McEvoy (1936–2019) was a former newspaper reporter and college English teacher who subsequently served as Midwest editor, then senior writer for DailyRacing Form. He authored Great Horse Racing Mysteries: True Tales from The Track, published in 2000 and updated by Lenny Shulman in 2022, as well as a profile of the iconic racehorse Roundtable. McEvoy also wrote the1995 book Through the Pages of Daily Racing Form, a historical overview of American Thoroughbred racing based on material that had appeared in that newspaper’s first one hundred years.

Julia McEvoy is Senior Editor, Education and Equity at KQED in San Francisco. In her career in public radio, McEvoy has produced and edited award-winning documentaries and won the 1991 Eclipse Award for Best Radio Coverage of Thoroughbred Racing. Her stories have aired on NPR’s All Things Considered and Morning Edition, as well as Marketplace and Latino USA. Formerly, McEvoy was director of television at Arlington Park and a publicist at Gulfstream Park racetrack in Florida.