Hayley Turner is to retire from racing at the end of the current flat season: http://www.sportinglife.com/racing/...ner-is-set-to-retire-at-the-end-of-the-season
Move over Hayley Sammy Jo is the new face of female But on a serious note thanks to her she put women on the map about being taken seriously in racing and although not was she was the last year or two she was good and is a shame
Think that's right Wooly, she moved the view of the ability of lady jockeys along a good deal. She also did not have much luck.
This to my eye really is a non-story. It’s something that happens every week throughout sport. Career in decline followed by decision to retire. This has to be brutally frank been the case since the latter part of 2012 and the thing that really damaged her career has to be losing the association with the Bell barn. Meanwhile, this in my view is very much like the ‘Shergar Cup’ thread and story and I don’t want to come across as a hormonal feminist, again, but what chance have women riders got when every paragraph of every report highlights Hayley Turner’s sex! You can almost hear the words ‘ain’t she done well for a girl’ being deleted from keyboards up and down the land as correspondents think perhaps they should tone it down a bit! I’m sure you don’t squeal ‘ooooooooooooooooooooooh look, a lady is doing that job’ when you encounter a woman doing some role on your daily travels so why it is done repeatedly, over and over again, in the case of women jockeys I have no idea! Ms Turner was never one of my favourite jockeys and I always thought she had her limitations but good luck to her in the future.
I think that is a good move as she has not been riding anywhere near her best these last couple of seasons and has little in a finish compared to her prime of a few years back. I may be imagining it but she also does not seem as happy and seems a little jaded by it all lately. This could be imagined or could be to do with things away from racing but when interviewed she does not seem to have that enthusiasm she once had. I think there is definitely a place within the media for a jockey with a bit of personality who will tell things as they are, Hughsie would have made a good addition to those ranks but obviously has bigger fish to fry. If Haley can find her enthusiasm again and willing to be bold in her analysis she could find a place, if however she wants to just say the same things everyone else does I think she may find it hard. She has certainly played her part in our sport these last few years and good luck to her in whatever she does next.
Very sad for Hayley that she is hanging up her riding boots at just 32. She has been plagued with injuries over the last couple of years so it is unfortunate for the fairer sex that their principal role model will be taking a back seat. She has not been getting the big race rides so I suppose she is not as motivated to continue with the mundane day-to-day rides at places like her native Nottingham. But look on the positive side for women in the sport, as well as Sammy Jo Bell they also have Victoria Pendleton now that she has switched to a different sort of saddle!
Setting aside the old 'oh doesn't she do well for a girl' stuff, how is it newsworthy an average jockey is retiring. Strange
Harsh. She is a Group 1 winning jockey, and like others who have announced retirement, it is worth talking about on the forum. It has been clear that Hayley never really got past the awful incident she had and hasn't returned to racing with the same drive or confidence that she had before. It is a shame, because in 2011 I thought she was about to make another leap forward and become a jockey that was used by many. It never happened and now she is looking for another career, and good luck to her. She has a good way on TV and she has done a good deal for the sport, I hope she makes it in the media.
Re the above mentioned, Victoria Pendleton, it would appear that the natives are somewhat restless re her and she may even need a ‘minder’ on her next racecourse visit. There were a few lines in yesterday’s ‘Guardian’ stating that many jockeys, led by Rachel Kneller and Laura Pike, are unhappy that ‘her celebrity has smoothed her path into racing’. Whilst the latter went as far as saying that her appearance in the saddle (horse not bike) was ‘a slap in the face for young riders who cannot expect similar treatment’. Nass, re Hayley Turner. I don’t wish to be somewhat mean but do you think she’s got the voice for the media (well the spoken media). It has the same effect on me as someone running their nails down a blackboard.
I do indeed old boy, racing isn't all about those who talk like Cholmondley Warner you know!! She has always spoken sense when I have heard her interviewed, and not only that, she would do a lot better than quite a few racing types I have seen on ATR and C4. No names mentioned.
What's your voice like, SBC? Heard an old recording of Anthony Eden not so long ago. So ridiculously posh he was almost unintelligible. Things have changed for the better since then, thank goodness, but similar clowns are still hanging around who cannot seem to pronounce a simple word correctly. Is that 'good' English? I guess you might think so?
Just doubt all the journeymen jockeys plying their trade who've matched Miss Turners career will get front page RP treatment that's all. There's plenty who'll have had more success won't get a peep. Being a woman in Flat racing isn't that huge a disadvantage, well so it seems from my comfy armchair jockey position anyway! Maybe it's more commendable over jumps where strength is more crucial and there competing with bigger men.
Swanny, I’ve a regional dialect and most certainly don’t sound like Cholmondley Warner! I’ve actually been on one of those horrendous ‘media training’ courses and what it involves is them trying to break your dialect and turn you into a ‘Home Counties clone’. My fellow ‘trainees’, incidentally, included fillies from Liverpool and the North East and needless to say the tutor was not successful with any of us! The tutor incidentally told me that I had both a ‘regional inflection’ and sometimes was guilty of stringing words together without pausing. Botharehardlyhanging offencesthoughIwouldhavethought. But what could Hayley Turner actually bring to the media?!? Serious question. She seems incredible dull, to me, and is deffo no John Francome or Emma Spencer. Unless she’s hidden it very well there appears to be no wit, no dynamism, no sharpness and no insight in her whatsoever. I really can’t understand the clamour for her to go into the racing media just because she was half decent as a jockey. Casting my mind back, by the way, I remember similar calls re THAT man when he retired. Fortunately, he’s been kept off our screens, in the main, as similar comments detailed above about Ms Turner most certainly apply about him.
I don't think she was a journeyman jockey and I think that's the point of a few people on here. She was a Champion Apprentice, she rode 100 winners in a season, she won Group 1s and she won a Group 1 overseas. Look at how many jockeys riding today have done all of those things and you'll put a line through a majority of jockeys riding. Many of whom these pages sometimes is very positive about. You say being a women in Flat Racing isn't a huge disadvantage and that may be so if the criteria were strength and style of riding alone. But the mere fact that she was a woman put her at a huge disadvantage due to the attitudes of the majority of people who are in racing and follow racing (as many of you are making evident). She certainly had no advantages. She achieved an enormous amount had a horrible injury in 2009 and bounced back and had an even worse one a few years later. She deserves some applause on leaving the stage.
Ah Cyc, you have missed out on life. Watch as much Harry Enfield as you can get your hands on, then move on to the Fast Show:
Then look up Harry and Paul. My favourite sketch 40-45. 'Goodbye Matterhorn hello to the Peak District' . 'Yes climb down from Montrachet to Pinot Grigio' ' I wouldn't go that far'-
