Girls Make History At Cartmel
30/05/2013
A hundred years on from the suffragette Derby and the girls were making a piece of history of their own at Cartmel yesterday.
For the first time, female riders finished in the top three places as leading jockeys on the day in the Cartmel Jockeys Challenge.
It was only last year that Lucy Alexander broke the stranglehold of the male jockeys to win a daily prize in the Challenge and she was at it again yesterday with a winner, two seconds and a third from her rides at the track.
And in testing conditions that ought to have favoured male muscle over female finesse, she was followed to the top of the table by Samantha Drake and Emma Sayer, who each netted a winner and a third.
The Cartmel Jockeys Challenge, sponsored by the Swan Hotel & Spa at Newby Bridge, was introduced in 2008 and has so far been the preserve of make jockeys with Richie McGrath winning the inaugural competition, Graham Lee successful in 2009 and 2010 and Jason Maguire the winner in 2011 and 2012.
After three rounds of this year’s competition and with just four more rounds to go, Lucy Alexander leads the way on 11 points ahead of Danny Cook and Derek Fox, who are tied for second place on nine.
