Professional jockeys – Flat or National Hunt – must have balance, coordination, incredible core strength and endurance, but the nature of horse racing dictates that they are often put under pressure to make racing weights. In Britain, the minimum riding weight for Flat racing was raised from 7 stone 10lb to 7 stone 12lb in 2002 and again from 7 stone 12lb to 8 stone in 2013. Even so, according to the National Health Service, 8 stone is underweight for any adult, man or woman, taller than 5’ 5” and is, in fact, the ideal weight for an adult man who stands just 4’ 11” or 5’ 0” tall. National Hunt jockeys, for whom the minimum riding weight is 10 stone, fare a little better, but still weigh, on average, a stone less than their natural weight.
Of course, the ongoing battle with the scales is nothing new; some of the best jockeys in history have undergone, quite literally, decades of self-denial at the dinner table to remain at the top of their profession. Lester Piggott, who routinely rode at a little over 8 stone for most of his career, reputedly subsisted on a diet of champagne and cigars to keep his relatively tall, 5’8” frame the best part of two stone below its ideal weight.
Ian Watkinson, a National Hunt jockey who rode at the same time as Piggott, long before the advent of so-called ‘summer jumping’, struggled with his weight so much that he had two sets of clothes. A tall, robust individual, Watkinson rode at 10 stone, or less, during the season, but by June or July his weight would skyrocket to 12 stone 7lb or even 13 stone.
More recently, Sir Anthony McCoy, who was Champion Jockey for 20 years in a row, had the summer jumping programme to keep him ‘on the go’ but, nevertheless, subjected himself to a punishing regime of abstinence and hot baths to keep his weight in check. He once revealed that, in 2010 – the year he won the Grand National on Don’t Push It – his Christmas dinner consisted of less than 600 calories. McCoy rode at, or around, 10 stone 3lb for most of his career but, within eighteen months of his retirement, in April, 2015, gained two stone in weight.
Thankfully, nowadays, low-fat, high-protein diets, which do not involve starvation rations, coupled with cardiovascular and strength training, have largely replaced the more extreme methods of weight loss employed by yesteryear, such as self-induced vomiting, or ‘flipping’. Nevertheless, in an unforgiving industry, mental and physical suffering among jockeys is still commonplace.