win 228 races<\/a> before riding her last race in 1998, a month shy of her 50th birthday and nearly 30 years after her trailblazing ride at Hialeah Park in Florida on Feb. 7, 1969.<\/p>\nCrump was among several women to fight successfully at the time to be granted a jockey license, but they still needed a trainer willing to put them in a race and then for the race to run. Others were thwarted when male jockeys boycotted or threatened to boycott if a woman was riding.<\/p>\n
Photographs of Crump’s walk to the saddling area at Hialeah show her protected by security guards as a crowd pressed in on all sides. Six of the original 12 jockeys in the race had refused to ride, Mark Shrager wrote in his biography, \u201cDiane Crump: A Horse Racing Pioneer\u2019s Life in the Saddle.\u201d Among them were future legends Angel Cordero Jr., Jorge Velasquez and Ron Turcotte, who four years later would ride Secretariat to win the Triple Crown.<\/p>\n
But other jockeys stepped up, and as the 12 horses made their way onto the track, the bugler skipped the traditional call to the post and instead played \u201cSmile for Me, My Diane.\u201d Crump, on a 50-1 longshot called Bridle \u2019n Bit, finished 10th, but the barrier had been broken. A month later, Bridle \u2019n Bit gave Crump her first victory at Gulfstream Park.<\/p>\n
She again made history in 1970 by becoming the first woman to ride in the Kentucky Derby. She won the first race that day at Churchill Downs, but again her mount for the history-making race was outclassed. She finished 15th out of 17 on Fathom.<\/p>\n
It would be 14 more years before another female jockey would ride in the Derby, with only four more to follow in the decades since.<\/p>\n
The racetrack president at Churchill Downs, Mike Anderson, said in a statement on Friday that Crump \u201cwill be forever respected and fondly remembered in horse racing lore.\u201d<\/p>\n
He noted that Crump, who had been riding since age 5 and galloping young Thoroughbreds since she was a teenager, \u201cwas an iconic trailblazer who admirably fulfilled her childhood dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Goodlett, of the Kentucky Derby Museum, said \u201cDiane Crump’s name stands for courage, grit, and progress.\u201d He added: \u201cHer determination in the face of overwhelming odds opened doors for generations of female jockeys and inspired countless others far beyond racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
After retiring from racing, Crump settled in Virginia and started a business helping people buy and sell horses.<\/p>\n
In later years, she took her therapy dogs, all Dachshunds, to visit patients in hospitals and other medical clinics. Some with chronic illnesses she visited regularly for years.<\/p>\n
Payne said when her mother went into assisted living a month ago, she was already \u201cquasi-famous\u201d in the medical center because of how much time she had spent there, and a \u201csteady stream\u201d of doctors and nurses came to see her. One of the last people to visit her was the man who mowed her lawn.<\/p>\n
Her daughter said Crump would never take \u201cno\u201d for an answer, whether it was becoming a jockey or helping someone in need.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say she was as competitive as she was stubborn,\u201d Payne said. \u201cIf someone was counting on her, she could never let someone down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Late in life, Crump’s mottos were literally tattooed on her forearms: \u201cKindness\u201d on the left, \u201cCompassion\u201d on the right.<\/p>\n
Crump will be cremated and her ashes interred between her parents in Prospect Hill Cemetery in Front Royal, Virginia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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