A woman’s work

It has been said by stable staff in the industry that women are far more caring and nurturing and therefore they make better stable hands.

“Women have these natural instincts to nurture and care, they seem to give their horses more attention and horses respond very well to this,” said Amy Dickins, stable hand for Clive Cox.

Some within the industry believe women make better stable hands because they reveal their feelings towards their horses more, as stable hand for trainer Barry Hills, Darren Smith said, “The girls in our yard especially, they love their horses, they treat them very good and seem to build relationships within them.

“It doesn’t mean us men do not care for our horses, there are some men who are very good at their job, however women seem better at this work,” he added.

Racehorse owner, Brian Savage said, “I like having girls to look after my horses because they really do a good job and spoil them.”

I have witnessed this myself. From visiting various racing yards you can always tell which horses are looked after by women. The horse’s beds are always neater, they are always cleaner and the horses are well groomed.

In the stable hand sector of the racing industry women are out doing the men in terms of numbers. National statistics state that in 2007 females accounted for 1,683 of the stable workforce and males were behind on 1,625.

These statistics reveal women’s success in this area of the industry, opposed to race riding, and many women reported that they were more than happy to stay as stable hands and not develop further in the industry to ride as jockeys.

Amy suggests that because female stable hands find their job extremely fulfilling, this is one reason why many do not want to progress further in the industry. “There are not a lot of career opportunities for someone that does not want to ride as a jockey but we do the job purely for the love of it and for the love of horses,” she expressed.

This wish to not climb the career ranks from a stable hand may seem surprising for some. Darren said: “It’s not exactly a nice lifestyle, the hours are long, the pay wouldn’t be that great, and there’s not much for girls that don’t make it further in racing. They can be stable hands and that but it’s not really a nice life.”

Most racing yards have mixture of both male and female employees, however Champion trainer Paul Nicholls has nearly an entire staff workforce made up of females, which I believe could be holding the key to his success.