NEW RACE SERIES DEVISED TO CHAMPION PIONEERING FEMALE JOCKEYS
During Women’s Sport Week (3-7 Oct) Fast Track helped Arena Racing Company – the largest racecourse group in the UK – announce an innovative new race series devised to champion pioneering female jockeys.
In the last 20 years, women have accounted for just 4-5% of the total flat jockey population and there are currently just 7 professional female flat jockeys making a living from the sport. Fast Track help ARC develop the concept of the race series as well as the name, ‘The Silk Series’ with the objective of giving female jockeys more opportunities to race for big prize money and to showcase their talent to help break down barriers in what continues to be a male-dominated sport.
The Silk Series has a £100,000 prize pot and will take place during the 2017 UK flat racing season on Ladies Day at nine of Arena Racing Company owned racecourses. The leading jockey at the end of the series will be awarded with ‘The Tufnell Trophy’ in memory of Meriel Tufnell who was the first woman to in a horse race in the UK in 1972. Meriel died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 53 and so it is fitting that the Silk Series will also help raise awareness and funds for Cancer Research UK.