WASHINGTON — Diane Crump, who in 1969 turned the primary girl to experience professionally in a horse race and a 12 months later turned the primary feminine jockey within the Kentucky Derby, has died. She was 77.
Crump was identified in October with an aggressive type of mind most cancers and died Thursday night time in hospice care in Winchester, Virginia, her daughter, Della Payne, informed The Related Press.
Crump went on to win 228 races earlier than driving her final race in 1998, a month shy of her fiftieth birthday and practically 30 years after her trailblazing experience at Hialeah Park in Florida on Feb. 7, 1969.
Crump was amongst a number of ladies to battle efficiently on the time to be granted a jockey license, however they nonetheless wanted a coach keen to place them in a race after which for the race to run. Others have been thwarted when male jockeys boycotted or threatened to boycott if a lady was driving.
Pictures of Crump’s stroll to the saddling space at Hialeah present her protected by safety guards as a crowd pressed in on all sides. Six of the unique 12 jockeys within the race had refused to experience, Mark Shrager wrote in his biography, “Diane Crump: A Horse Racing Pioneer’s Life within the Saddle.” Amongst them have been future legends Angel Cordero Jr., Jorge Velasquez and Ron Turcotte, who 4 years later would experience Secretariat to win the Triple Crown.
However different jockeys stepped up, and because the 12 horses made their method onto the observe, the bugler skipped the standard name to the submit and as a substitute performed “Smile for Me, My Diane.” Crump, on a 50-1 longshot known as Bridle ’n Bit, completed tenth, however the barrier had been damaged. A month later, Bridle ’n Bit gave Crump her first victory at Gulfstream Park.
She once more made historical past in 1970 by changing into the primary girl to experience within the Kentucky Derby. She gained the primary race that day at Churchill Downs, however once more her mount for the history-making race was outclassed. She completed fifteenth out of 17 on Fathom.
It might be 14 extra years earlier than one other feminine jockey would experience within the Derby, with solely 4 extra to comply with within the many years since.
The racetrack president at Churchill Downs, Mike Anderson, mentioned in an announcement on Friday that Crump “will probably be without end revered and fondly remembered in horse racing lore.”
He famous that Crump, who had been driving since age 5 and galloping younger Thoroughbreds since she was an adolescent, “was an iconic trailblazer who admirably fulfilled her childhood desires.”
Chris Goodlett, of the Kentucky Derby Museum, mentioned “Diane Crump’s identify stands for braveness, grit, and progress.” He added: “Her willpower within the face of overwhelming odds opened doorways for generations of feminine jockeys and impressed numerous others far past racing.”
After retiring from racing, Crump settled in Virginia and began a enterprise serving to folks purchase and promote horses.
In later years, she took her remedy canines, all Dachshunds, to go to sufferers in hospitals and different medical clinics. Some with power sicknesses she visited usually for years.
Payne mentioned when her mom went into assisted dwelling a month in the past, she was already “quasi-famous” within the medical middle due to how a lot time she had spent there, and a “regular stream” of docs and nurses got here to see her. One of many final folks to go to her was the person who mowed her garden.
Her daughter mentioned Crump would by no means take “no” for a solution, whether or not it was changing into a jockey or serving to somebody in want.
“I wouldn’t say she was as aggressive as she was cussed,” Payne mentioned. “If somebody was relying on her, she might by no means let somebody down.”
Late in life, Crump’s mottos have been actually tattooed on her forearms: “Kindness” on the left, “Compassion” on the appropriate.
Crump will probably be cremated and her ashes interred between her mother and father in Prospect Hill Cemetery in Entrance Royal, Virginia.
