Love Bucks the Glass Ceiling

“I do what I set my mind to. I’ve been that way all my life,” says Diane Crump, the first female jockey to ride in the Kentucky Derby.

Being a woman never fazed Crump.

“I didn’t even realize there weren’t other women around,” she remembers. “When you love something you don’t pay attention to the rest of it.”

Crump didn’t come from a family of jockeys. No one was involved with horses.

Selling newspapers and soliciting other odd jobs, she saved up to buy her first horse, Buckshot. Soon after, she found herself working on a farm with race horses.

“When the horses left for races, I wanted to go too,” she says.

She remembers thinking, “Riding races is the next logical thing for guys, why shouldn’t I have a chance to ride, too?”

“It was struggle in that era,” says Crump. “You were never going to be on a top horse. And, I had to work 10, maybe 20 times, harder [than the men].”

Still, she describes the experience as a culmination of her dreams.

“Because I was first, because I never gave up, I got to go to places like Puerto Rico. It was amazing.”

Often Googled for school assignments, Crump answers each and every one of the thousands of emails she receives from students yearly.

“After writing back to hundreds of kids, I finally I said I need to write a standard report. So I did, and now I email it to the kids,” she laughs.

“If I can make a small footprint on their lives, that’s everything.”

Bonus PINK Link: Which is more difficult being a woman or being black? See what these top women said.

Who are your favorite “firsts” in women’s history?

By L. Nicole Williams

Nicole is the Editor at Little PINK Book. Follow her on Twitter @iamnicwill.

“When you follow a dream and never let it die, you get accomplish things that you could never dream.” Diane Crump