The trouble with being Hayley Turner is that she is so damned good; and she is a woman. She is the most successful British female jockey. She is a history-maker, a barrier-breaker, but she does not want you to think of her this way. Her ambition is simply to be considered an unusually good jockey, not a jockey who is unusually good for a girl.
That she is nice-looking complicates her mission. When we phoned to arrange to meet her we said that we wanted to send a photographer. The alarm bells started ringing. Pictures? She feared flesh and lingerie. She recalled another picture-shoot request that had involved wearing leathers and sitting on a motorbike. Not for her. At one stage, this interview was cancelled.
A couple of years ago, when a group of female jockeys posed for a calendar, Turner alone refused the soft-focus treatment and was snapped simply in a dress. “We're trying to be taken seriously here,” she said. And she laughs at that episode and at her lack of confidence in front of the camera. Neither does she come over as remotely militant or feminist. It is more that she has an immense sense of solidarity with the whole of the weighing-room, not just the feminine minority. “We all work hard,” she said. “You have to work for it no matter who you are, male or female.” Her issue is that she is getting the publicity here and her face in The Times when her friends and rivals who are also ranked about No30 in the jockeys' championship are not.
There are those who would love her to shout her success from the rooftops, who believe that she deserves all that comes to her because of the barriers she has scaled. But she will not countenance talk of obstacles. Indeed, her vain hope is that by riding enough winners, her gender will no longer be of interest. Conversely, the greater her success, the more noticeable it becomes.
The point was made at Newbury recently when Marcus Tregoning, the trainer, put her up for Taameer, a 2009 Derby prospect, when his retained riders, Richard Hills and Martin Dwyer, were unavailable. Turner pushed the 20-1 shot to win in a tight finish but was dismayed when Tregoning was questioned about his choice of jockey. “He was asked, ‘Why did you put Hayley Turner on your horse?' and I just thought that was a very narrow-minded question,” she said. “Stupid question. It was unnecessary. I don't see why jockey booking should have been an issue. It wouldn't have been an issue with anyone else.”
Tregoning, however, did her proud and said that she was an easy choice because he rated her as one of the top ten jockeys in the country. Which raises the question: does she agree? “I can't say I'm in the top ten, because I'm not,” she said (she is No31). There is a growing band, though, who believe that she should be.
Her gritty modesty sits well. The facts that she refuses steadfastly to embellish are that it remains harder for female jockeys to convince trainers and owners to have them ride their horses. This is not necessarily a prejudice, more a reflection of history: that so few female riders make it.
The stand-out in this respect is Julie Krone, the American who rode 3,704 winners. Turner has not won a tenth of that figure and while she understands why people mention Krone's name to her, she does not believe that they belong in the same sentence.
But being 25, fuelled with potential and humility, it requires others to sing her praises. What sets her apart from other women riders? “She's very athletic, strong, extremely consistent and, tactically, very rarely is she in the wrong place,” Michael Bell, the trainer for whom she rides, said. “Very rarely do you want to throw a brick at the television.” Bell, though, acknowledges that there were teething problems. “Obviously there were a few doubters initially among my owners,” he said. “But virtually all now would be more than happy to have Hayley ride their horses.”
And for all the seriousness of her approach, Turner is not without a sense of humour. The old joke in Bell's yard is that he would get her to ride out on the same horse so that he could ask her, “What are you riding today, Hayley?” and get the answer: “Turn Me On, Guv'nor.” Bell said: “In this male-dominated world, she gets a fair amount of stick. And she can certainly cope.”
Cope? She relishes it. She was brought up in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, where her mother was a riding instructor, although she did not race until she was 16. She attended a trial day at the Northern Racing School and liked it so much she went back for more. Then she rode a winner and that is all she has wanted to do since.
In 2005 she was the apprentice champion; this year she set herself a target of 70 winners and cantered through it. And that is the way she wants it to remain. She particularly enjoys racing at Southwell, where her grandmother can come and watch and leave her with flapjacks and cottage pies to take back home. “I love what I do,” Turner said. “We all moan that we're tired and travel miles, but I would never do anything else. I'm going to keep riding until I'm old and wrinkly and a galloping granny.”
Note that she is driven by the love of the sport. At no stage was she driven by her gender or the need to make a statement for womankind. As she gets better and her horses get better and her wins get bigger, that is how her success will read.
