Page 21 - The Game February 2006

Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper The Game, February 2006 21
Was Emma-Jayne Wilson Stiffed?
By Peter Gross
Champion Apprentice Jockey Emma-Jayne Wilson suffered two unpleasant blows in an otherwise wildly successful 2005. On October 9th, in the Carotene Stakes at Woodbine, her horse, Count On Three, smashed through the portable rail tossing Wilson unpleasantly to the grass, giving her a badly bruised thigh.
The second indignity, not quite as physically painful, came from the voters who selected the Canadian Female Athlete of the year. The Bobby Rosenfeld Award, as it’s called, went, deservedly, to speed skater Cindy Klassen, of Winnipeg, who won 8 World Cup races and set four world records during the year. Second place went to Christine St. Clair, from Burnaby, who was
named the NCAA’s lady soccer player of the year and diver Blythe Hartley of North Vancouver attracted the third most votes.
Emma-Jayne Wilson was on the ballot, but the 120 or so sportswriters and editors across Canada barely seemed to notice. Wilson finished 15th in the voting, garnering no first place votes, two seconds and five thirds.
Huh?
Did anyone pay attention to what this woman did in 2005? With 175 wins Wilson was the first woman to capture the overall jockeys’ championship at Woodbine. How does that go unnoticed?
Readers of The Game hardly need to be told what superb athletes jockeys are, but let’s indulge anyway. Of all the world’s players, jockeys have the greatest strength-per-weight ratio and extraordinary heart- lung capacity. For each race a jockey rides, she has to control an animal ten times her weight for about 20 minutes. The race itself asks something from pretty well every muscle in the body - the work required in a six- furlong sprint is about as exhausting as doing push-ups furiously for 70 seconds.
Much like a speed skater, a jockey must evaluate pace while maintaining balance and technique. Like a soccer player, the jockey needs endurance and persistence. Like a cyclist, she must be prepared to make an instant decision while at the mercy of the equipment under- neath her. Like a downhill skier, the slightest miscalculation can mean catastrophe. Like a hockey player, the jockey must make instant appraisals of the action around her and sense the exact moment to make the winning move.
What does it say about horse racing in Canada, that Emma- Jayne Wilson was the best in the country and didn’t earn a single vote for best female athlete? Did the industry fail her by not
promoting her sufficiently to the people who vote on these things?
Aside from the obvious - that she’s an extraordinary athlete who had a magnificent year - there were two inescapable items voters should have considered about Wilson.
First, of all the athletes considered, she was the only one who competed on a day-by-day basis against men. Even if you don’t accept the argument that testosterone is a dominant ingredient in sports, Emma-Jayne compet- ed against 100% of the possible players in her sport. Everyone else on the list was restricted to half the pool. Emma-Jayne Wilson did what Annika Sorenstam,
Michelle Wie and the Williams sisters have never been able to do.
She beat the best men in her sport. Not once. 175 times.
And here’s the second thing. Wilson’s horses earned over $7,000,000. Using very modest calculations, Wilson banked about 5% of that, or around $350,000. That makes her Canada’s most successful female professional athlete. She earned more than any Canadian lady golfer, tennis player, bowler or snooker player. Of course, it’s just money and while that hardly makes one vote-worthy, it’s hard not to imagine that if Mike Weir had led the PGA in earnings in 2005.....
CONTINUED PAGE 22 - SEE EMMA-JAYNE
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