Linda Jones (jockey)

In 1952,[1] Jones was born in Auckland, New Zealand.[2] She partook in the 1970 Powder Puff Derby as one of eleven jockeys in an era when women were not allowed to be jockeys.[3] Jones was later invited to compete at a meet in Brazil in 1975 and told her husband Alan Jones she wanted to be a jockey.[4] She went on to win the 1975 Qantas International Women's Handicap at Rotorua,[2] and was considered New Zealand's leading female jockey.[5] In September 1976, Jones became the first woman to apply for a apprentice jockey licence with the New Zealand Racing Conference (NZRC).[5] The application was rejected on the grounds of her being "too old, married and not strong enough";[6] they felt she would claim men's jockey's winnings and would not receive the appropriate dressing rooms.[7] Jones and her husband were prepared to go to court,[6] and she led a campaign for improved equality within the racing industry, for which she received hate mail.[4] The government of New Zealand later passed legislation in the form of the Human Rights Commission Act 1977 banning sexual discrimination.[6][7] Following heavy pressure from the racing journalist John Costello, the NZRC approved female racing licences in July 1977,[5] and Jones became both the first woman to be granted a New Zealand race licence and the first woman to compete against men in the country.[8][9]

She was apprenticed to her husband,[8] and required to stay apprenticed until 1982 per New Zealand racing rules with her earnings put into a Racing Conference trust.[10] She began riding professionally on 12 August 1978,[8] at Matamata.[7] Jones achieved her first winner at Te Rapa,[1] and received nationwide attention for becoming the first woman in Australasia to win four times on the same day at a September 1978 meeting at Te Rapa.[3][4][6] She was also the first woman in the North Island to claim victory.[4] Jones rode 18 winners by Christmas 1978 and was second in the 1978/1979 Jockey Premiership.[1][11] She went on to ride Holy Toledo to victory in the 1979 Grade II Wellington Derby that took place that January,[12] becoming the first woman to ride a Derby winner in each of the Australasia, Europe, and North America continents.[5] Jones later became the first woman to ride a winner over professional male entrants at an Australian-registered event when she rode Pay The Purple to a first-place finish at the 1979 Labour Day Cup at Brisbane in May 1979.[5][8] That year, she sustained two separate injuries by fracturing her rib and puncturing her lung.[10] Jones had achieved 65 victories as a jockey within 18 months.[8]

In March 1980, she sustained a suspected broken pelvis, a fractured vertebrae atop her spine, sprained wrist and concussion in an accident while training at her husband's Cambridge establishment.[13] Jones accepted that she possibly could never fully recover to peak fitness and retired from racing in September 1980.[14] She went into semi-retirement and began training race horses and achieved success with them in Australia in the 1980s.[4][15]

She and her husband have a daughter who was born in 1977.[16] Jones was appointed MBE in the 1979 Queen's Birthday Honours[17] "for her contribution to racing and women's rights".[18]

Jones was listed between 45 to 46 kg (99 to 101 lb).[19] In 1979, she sought not to enter one or two events of a single meeting as she combined her career with a holiday.[19] Jones wrote the autobiography, The Linda Jones Story, in 1979.[20]

She was nominated for the 1978 New Zealand Sportswoman of the Year by the nation's South Pacific Television channel,[21] and received the New Zealand Racing Personality of the Year Award from the Prime Minister Robert Muldoon the following year.[17] In 1990, Jones was added to the sporting category of the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame.[1] She was the first woman to be inducted into the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame in March 2010.[18][22] In April 2019, a retirement village on Hamilton's River Road was named after Jones in celebration of her sporting achievements.[9]

• Linda Jones Profile at the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame