By TODD TRAUB
Leader sports editor
Archarcharch jockey Jon Court will enjoy a bit of personal history today as he rides the Arkansas-owned colt in Court’s first Kentucky Derby appearance.
But while it is a first for Court just to be in the saddle at Churchill Downs, other jockeys need a victory to enter the horse-racing history books.
Watch Me Go trainer Kathleen O’Connell and Mucho Macho Man trainer Kathy Ritvo will be trying to become the first female trainers to have horses win the Derby, which starts today at 5:24 p.m., while Pants on Fire jockey Rosie Napravnik will be trying to become the first woman jockey to win.
Only 14 female trainers and five jockeys have competed in the Kentucky Derby, in its 137th running this year.
Ritvo has captured the nation’s attention not only because of her gender and her horse but because, in 2008, she received a heart transplant that saved her from the degenerative condition that killed her brother Lou in 1996.
“I’ve been on the track since 1970,” Ritvo told the Associated Press. “My first license said ‘exercise boy’ because there wasn’t even a category to check for a girl.”
Last year Napravnik was the first woman to win the riding title at Delaware Park and, on Pants on Fire, she won the $1 million Louisiana Derby to qualify for the Kentucky Derby.
Diane Crump was the first woman to ride in a pari-mutuel race and in the Kentucky Derby. She needed a police escort into Florida’s Hialeah Park for the pari-mutuel in 1969 and rode in the Kentucky Derby the following year.
Julie Krone is the most famous and successful female jockey to ride in the Kentucky Derby, and the last woman jockey was Rosemary Homeister Jr., in 2003. No female jockey has finished the Derby higher than 11th.
Napravnik said horse racing is still a man’s world, but that things are slowly changing.
“You still get that just about every day,” Napravnik said. “ ‘I don’t want to ride a girl. The owner doesn’t want to ride a girl. You’re not as strong, you’re not as this, you’re not as that.’
“It’s probably not nearly what it used to be, but it’s still out there.”
Watch Me Go is a 50-1 shot from post No. 20 and Mucho Macho Man will go off at 12-1 from post No. 13. Pants on Fire will start from Post No. 7 at 20-1.
Court and Archarcharch drew the unenviable No. 1 post position and will have to fight from the rail in the 20-horse field.
Court, 50, is the son in law of Archarcharch trainer Jinks Fires, also making his first Derby appearance.
“I’ll talk it over with Jinks and see what our tactical plan is,” Court said.
