This Week In History: Mary Russ Becomes The First Female Jockey To Notch A Grade 1

Those who follow women’s history in horse racing probably know that Diane Crump was the first female jockey to ride in a sanctioned race in America in 1969. You may not know that it wasn’t until this week in 1982 that jockey Mary Russ became the first female rider to win a Grade 1 stakes race.

By most standards, Russ arrived to the saddle somewhat late, not launching her career as a jockey until two years earlier, when she was 25. The Florida native grew up riding sport and gaited horses and went to work at Red Oak Farm in Ocala breaking yearlings after she graduated high school. At first, she was just thrilled to be paid to work with the animals she loved so much and didn’t consider any higher-speed endeavors.

“It got to a point where everyone was talking so much about the race track and here I didn’t have any idea about it at all,” Russ told Blood-Horse in 1982. “And after awhile it got to bothering me. I feel like if you’re going to work hard at something and take pride in it, you have to do all you can to better yourself at it. There were exercise riders who would come to the farm and they’d say ‘This horse is worth so much,’ and ‘That one is a stakes horse,’ and I felt bad because I couldn’t tell one from the other as far as placing a money value on them. That’s when I decided to go to the race track.”

Russ called trainer Manny Tortora, who she knew from a job at Hobeau Farm, and asked for help in learning to ride on the track. Tortora’s son Rick would go out on the pony alongside Russ and give her pointers and teaching her how to both gallop and pony in the mornings. (Mary and Rick would eventually marry in 1983 and have three children.)

When not juggling morning work in Tortora’s barn with afternoon shifts at the track deli, Russ also trained herself for jockey toughness by bull riding. She quit after a particularly nasty fall left her with a broken collarbone and a punctured lung and medical bills her insurance wouldn’t cover.

Russ only picked up 22 mounts in her first partial year riding in 1980, but got more work in her first full year, riding 908 starters and 118 winners in 1981. Her breakout year came in 1982 when she got the season off to a bang by twice getting three winners on a race card at Calder and finishing in the top 10 of rider standings there. On Feb. 27, she stepped it up, winning the G1 Widener Handicap at Hialeah aboard Lord Darnley for trainer Roger Laurin. The pair put in a closing outside effort, coming from far off the pace to edge rival Joanie’s Chief by a head.

A month later, Russ was back aboard Lord Darnley for their second Grade 1 together in the Gulfstream Park Handicap. The same year she would be first in the jockey standings for the Tropical Park meet at Calder, and she’d also become the first female rider whose mounts would crack $1 million in earnings.

After her success in Florida, Russ tried her luck against the riding colony in New York but found the competition much tougher.

Russ left the saddle upon learning she was pregnant with twins in 1986, and shifted her focus to raising her family and helping maintain Equitor Farm near Ocala, which belonged to Rick’s parents – including riding 15 to 20 yearlings a day.

In 1992, Russ told Sports Illustrated that Rick gave her a card on Christmas Day with an inscription saying he’d support her if she wanted to return to the races. At the age of 39, by then a mother of three, she did.

“It’s sort of like riding a bicycle,” she told SI’s William Reed. “Once you do it, you never forget.”