Jockey fitness and why do they fall off horses? - Professor Chris Rogers, Massey University

Jockeys have an integral role in the quality of racing and the welfare of the race horse.

However, despite this pivotal role, there is limited data published on the physiological challenges of race riding and the influence of muscular fatigue. In addition to the lack of data on the physical demands of race riding there has been limited attention paid to the risk factors for jockeys being dislodged during a race or having a horse fall. To address this lack of knowledge Kylie Legg is conducting a PhD that is investigating the reasons and risk factors for jockey falls and using advanced smart materials clothing to measure the muscular effort of race riding. This research will allow us to identify and reduce variables associated with jockey falls and develop “jockey specific” physical conditioning programmes.

The first part of the PhD involved examination of all the race records for the last 14 years (2005-2019 racing seasons) including all the records of jockey and horse falls during racing within this timeframe.

The first study completed was an examination of the incidence and risk factors for race-day jockey falls over fourteen years. Using a dataset of over 400,000 racehorse/jockey starts it was identified that 97% of the races were flat races with 10 races per race-day. During flat racing the incidence (rate of falls) was 1.2 falls per 1,000 starts. However, while jumps racing only accounted for 3% of the racing starts, the rate of falls was almost 50 times that of flat racing for a hurdles race (53.2 per 1,000 starts and nearly 100 times that for steeplechase races with 99.9 falls / 1,000 starts. Experienced jockeys (and horses) had a lower incidence of falls than inexperienced jockeys. Jockeys with fewer race rides were more likely to have a fall indicating that there may be some need for “race specific fitness”. This may imply that similar to other athletes, there is no substitute for competition to sharpen skills and maintain fitness. The good news is that the incidence of jockey falls decreased by 4% over the fourteen years, indicating that industry practices are reducing the frequency of jockey falls during racing.

The second and third study looked at the external workload and career length of Thoroughbred horse racing jockeys. This dataset contained the career history (race rides etc.) of 786 jockeys who rode in 407,948 flat and 13,648 jumps racing starts over 14 seasons. Jockeys were classified based on jockey work (ride numbers, seasons riding) and performance characteristics (race falls or wins) between cohorts with low (1–10), middle (10–200) and high (> 200) numbers of rides per season (Figure 1).

Jockey rides during the season were typified by a few jockeys (23% of all jockeys) having 83% of all the race rides. Most of the jockeys had light workloads and also had a greater risk of injury and lower winning rates than the smaller cohort of jockeys with heavier workloads.

These elite jockeys had half the fall rate (IR 1.0, 95% CI 0.9–1.1) and 1.4 times the success rates per 1000 rides (IR 98, 95% CI 97–99) than jockeys in the low and middle workload cohorts (p < 0.05). This disparity in opportunity and success between cohorts indicates inefficiencies within the industry in recruitment and retention of jockeys. Figure 1. Percentages of flat racing jockeys and total number of flat racing rides for low (1 – 10), middle (10 – 200) and high (> 200 rides per season) cohort jockeys for the racing seasons 2005/6 – 2018/9.

The median (typical) career length for jockeys was 2 years (IQR 1 – 6). This short career reflects the bias presented earlier with the majority of jockeys having very few race rides compared to the elite jockeys who had most of the rides. Jockeys with long race careers (only 11% of all jockeys) were able to ride at lower carried weights (IQR 56 – 57 kg, p = 0.03), had 40 times the number of race rides of the “average” jockey and were 1.3 time more likely to win a race. Half of the 40% of jockeys who failed to complete their apprenticeship were lost from the industry in their first year of race riding.

Conclusions

This data indicate that the typical jockey’s career is very short and is heavily influenced by the ability to obtain race rides early in their career. It appears that higher numbers of race rides not only increase the chance of success, but the higher frequency of race riding may increase “competition fitness” and reduce the risk of injury. The increased chance of falling with increasing races ridden per day indicates the fatigue (mental and physical) may play a role in race day falls and that physical training outside race riding may be of benefit. The next phase of the study is to measure the fitness of jockeys and apprentices and quantify how hard they work when race riding.

This project has received funding from the NZ Equine Trust.

References:

Incidence and risk factors for race-day jockey falls over fourteen years. Legg, K. A., Cochrane, D. J., Bolwell, C. F., Gee, E. K., & Rogers, C. W. (2020). Incidence and risk factors for race-day jockey falls over fourteen years. J Sci Med Sport, 23, 1154-1160. doi:10.1016/j.jsams.2020.05.015

The external workload of thoroughbred horse racing jockeys.
Legg, K. A., Cochrane, D., Gee, E., & Rogers, C. (2020). The external workload of thoroughbred horse racing jockeys. Sustainability, 12(18). doi:10.3390/su12187572

Jockey career length and risk factors for loss from thoroughbred race riding. Legg, K. A., Cochrane, D., Gee, E., & Rogers, C. (2020). Jockey career length and risk factors for loss from thoroughbred race riding. Sustainability, 12(18). doi:10.3390/su12187443