{"id":388086,"date":"2026-01-03T02:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T02:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388086\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T02:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T02:33:07","slug":"trailblazing-us-female-jockey-diane-crump-dies-aged-77","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/388086\/","title":{"rendered":"Trailblazing US female jockey Diane Crump dies aged 77"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Diane Crump, who in 1969 became the first woman to ride professionally in a horse race in the United States, has died.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Crump had an aggressive form of brain cancer and died on Friday AEDT in hospice care in Winchester, Virginia, aged 77.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">She won 228 races before her final ride in 1998, a month shy of her 50th birthday and nearly 30 years after her trailblazing ride at Hialeah Park in Florida on February 7, 1969.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Crump again made history in 1970 by becoming the first woman to ride in the Kentucky Derby.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">She was among several women to fight successfully in the late 60s to be granted a jockey license.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">But they still needed a trainer willing to put them in a race, and then for the race to run. Others were thwarted when male jockeys boycotted or threatened to boycott if a woman was riding.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Photographs of Crump&#8217;s walk to the saddling area at Hialeah show her protected by security guards as a crowd pressed in on all sides.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Six of the original 12 jockeys in the race refused to ride.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2025-11-04\/horse-racing-jamie-melham-melbourne-cup-journey-analysis\/105971088\" data-component=\"FullBleedLink\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Challenges overcome, Jamie Melham is back at the top of racing<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Jamie Melham overcomes numerous challenges to reach the pinnacle of her racing career, joining Michelle Payne in the rarest of rare clubs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Crump, on a 50-1 long-shot called Bridle &#8216;n Bit, finished 10th, but the barrier had been broken. A month later, Bridle &#8216;n Bit gave Crump her first victory at Gulfstream Park in Florida.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">After her history-making appearance at the Kentucky Derby in 1970, when she rode Fathom to 15th place at Louisville&#8217;s Churchill Downs, it would be 14 years before another female jockey would ride in the revered Triple Crown race.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Only four more have followed in the decades since.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Churchill Downs racetrack president Mike Anderson was among those to pay tribute to Crump.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">&#8220;[She] will be forever respected and fondly remembered in horse racing lore,&#8221; Anderson said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Chris Goodlett, of the Kentucky Derby Museum, said: &#8220;Diane Crump&#8217;s name stands for courage, grit and progress.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">After retiring from racing, Crump settled in Virginia and started a business helping people buy and sell horses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diane Crump, who in 1969 became the first woman to ride professionally in a horse race in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,208129,67971,23237,153199,51170,85,1055,2489],"class_list":{"0":"post-388086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-diane-crump","11":"tag-female","12":"tag-horse-racing","13":"tag-jockey","14":"tag-kentucky-derby","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}