The Girls’ Room
Suffolk Downs has been welcoming to women jockeys for years (in 1974, the late Denise Boudrot became the first female rider to win a meet title at a major track when she rode 94 winners as an apprentice*), but the seven-member East Boston lady riders’ colony is particularly strong this summer:
When Vicky Baze was riding at Suffolk last month, the women’s jocks’ room contained the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-winningest female riders of all time and three of the top four active women jockeys. Piermarini, fourth with 2.129 wins; Baze, fifth with 2,098 wins; and Jellison, sixth at 1,856 account for more than 6,000 wins together, and Piermarini entered Wednesday just eight wins behind Patti Cooksey for third on the all-time list behind Julie Krone and Rosemary Homeister.
Tammi Piermarini, the track’s leading rider the past three years, is currently leading the standings; Jackie Davis is running second.
Local photographer Bud Morton has been documenting Suffolk’s riding women — this photo, of Piermarini and Davis breaking from the gate, is really good. (The expressions on their faces!)
*Enjoy this Sports Illustrated profile of Boudrot from 1974: “At Suffolk almost every jockey has been beaten by Denise, and they have learned to live with it, which is not an easy thing for these little men who have discovered a place of their own in a big person’s world.” Boudrot died in 2010, at age 57.
7/23/12 Addendum: Congratulations! With three wins at Suffolk Downs today, “Piermarini becomes third-leading woman rider.”
