All set for the Clare Lindop at Morphettville

Image courtesy of Clare Lindop

These days, the female presence in the riding ranks is something of a given, a trail now blazed by the likes of Winona Costin, Jessica Eaton and Jamie Kah. But it’s not so long ago that the glass ceiling was broken by women in professional race-riding, and one of those who did it was Clare Lindop.

The South Australian jockey, who hung up her boots in 2018, has been called a pioneer, a trailblazer and an icon. Through 20 years, she rode to the top of the racing game.

Lindop was the first Australian woman to ride in a Melbourne Cup, and the first woman to win a G1 Victoria Derby. She was the first woman to win the R. Listed Magic Millions 2YO Classic, and the first woman to win an Adelaide and South Australian jockey premiership.

It’s a raft of firsts that reads like mere facts these days, challenged even by the likes of Jamie Kah and Michelle Payne.

However, the reality is that Lindop achieved everything when female representation in the jockeys’ rooms was virtually nil. Most tracks didn’t have female change rooms, let alone things like maternity leave.

No top-tier rider will compete through these conditions ever again, so it’s only fitting that Lindop, probably the most deserving of that ‘pioneer’ title among female riders, has a stakes race named in her honour at Morphettville Parks this weekend.

Private thrill

The Listed Clare Lindop S. took over from the Laelia S. last year and, this weekend, it is the feature event of the Morphettville meeting.

If Lindop is feeling a little dizzy from all the attention it has brought her, she hides it well, because success never went to this young woman’s head.

“I think the idea behind it came from the board of Racing SA, which decided to modernise a couple of race names and make them more relevant to current industry figures,” Lindop said. “I was really humbled by it, and I’m still humbled to think that there’s a race named after me.”

Lindop has been retired from competitive riding for four years, and she said that fact has made the race’s renaming settle on her differently.

“It is a really nice thrill,” she said, “especially now that I’m retired from racing. I feel the honour a little bit more, and I think it’s only when you’ve finished your career, when you’re not living and breathing your everyday riding, that you have a chance to reflect on achievement.

“So I guess in some ways it’s nice to have this race that recognises my achievements and contribution because there’s a permanency about the history now, and that’s also nice for younger people coming through.”

Like anything, after a while it will just become normal. However, Lindop is still taking a private thrill from hearing people talking about setting horses “for the Clare Lindop”.

“I’ve really enjoyed that,” she said. “It’s been fun to hear that around the place, and the race is actually a really good field this year which makes it even better.”

A good fit

The Listed Clare Lindop S. will be run under set weights and penalties over 1600 metres. It will be a competitive mile on Saturday, the 14-horse field headed by the locally trained Mac ‘N’ Cheese (Sebring) and the Maher-Eustace filly with the cult following on name alone, Saucey Horsey (So You Think {NZ}).

All of the local legends have horses nominated, including Leon Macdonald, Michael Hickmott and the McEvoy partnership, while the Freedman team has Fjord (Fastnet Rock) among it, along with fellow interstate trainers like the Price-Kent Jnr yard.

“It’s a really good-quality field,” Lindop said. “I like the fact that the race is for young fillies on the way up that might be heading towards the Oaks, and that resonates with me because there’s something there about encouraging the young fillies to aspire to the Group 1s. My career was all about that.

“I feel like it’s a really lovely fit that this is my race, and last year the inaugural winner was Jess Eaton aboard Ecumenical. It proved a really fitting tribute.”

Lindop doesn’t have any specific connection to any of the runners on Saturday.

Rather, she has an indirect connection to many of them through her association with people like Leon Macdonald, for whom she rode extensively, and Barend Vorster, who is represented by Lindop’s jockey-agent husband, Damien Wilton.

“I don’t have any favourites in the field,” she said. “I’ve got connections to so many of them, really. My husband also manages Paul Gatt and Jake Toeroak, who also have rides in the race, so that would be a nice little segway.”

Seamless transition

Four years down the road of retirement, Lindop is still in South Australia and still kicking goals.

In June last year, she joined the Racing SA team as its Industry Development and Training Officer, a role that has kept her in the racing fold but in new and rewarding ways.

Her appointment was an effort by Racing SA to encourage new people into the South Australian racing industry. In its view, every four new horses into the game was one new full-time job, and Lindop’s role was to identify crucial talent that might fill the shortage of track riders and stable staff in barns.

“What better way to explain racing and attract people to our industry than by having one of South Australia’s brightest sporting stars to represent us,” said Nick Redin last year, Racing SA’s CEO.

As such, Lindop has begun training new people into horse racing. As the winner of 1432 races, four at Group 1 level and over 50 black-type wins, she was highly qualified to push the recruitment agenda.

She has gone to schools and worked with pony clubs, anywhere that might have a pool of new people suited to a career in racing.

Additionally, she does public speaking engagements and she is an elected councillor for the Seacliff Ward in the City of Holdfast Bay. It’s been a fabulous career for a girl that left school at 14.

“I did feel like I was the black sheep of my family, leaving school so early,” Lindop said.

The decision to pursue horses at such a tender age must have been a salty experience for her academic parents, who were a university lecturer and teacher, but Lindop said she was always supported and always encouraged to succeed, no matter the field of dreams.

“Now as I’m older, and dealing with teenagers in my new career in industry development, I’m actually encouraging them not to leave school and to finish Year 12,” she said. “So I understand now how important qualifications are, which is ironic given I left school at 14.”

In everything she’s done, Lindop has aimed for the top and reached it.

Her 20-year riding career shattered myths and ceilings, but her new career in industry and local government suits her just as well.

“It might sound surprising that a jockey is in local government advocating for different things in my own area, but one of the things I did do as a jockey was be quite outspoken through the jockeys’ associations on safety and such things,” Lindop said.

“It wasn’t about the female flag all the time, but it was advocation for equality, and that’s all that people want really. I learned how to speak up and advocate, so a career like that actually gives you the means to go into what I’ve gone into, and it’s been really interesting, even for me to sit back and see that happen.”