THE increased height of Irish jockeys over the past five years has left them struggling to make weights before races, according to the Turf Club.
The average height of jump and flat riders has increased by just over 1in since 2011. Since 1978 the weight of interns at the Racing Academy and Centre of Education, the base at the Curragh where jockeys are trained, has risen by 47%, or about 38lb. During the same period, the minimum weight standard has gone up by 10%.
Jockeys employ techniques including sweating off in hot baths to lose weight before races. The Turf Club is urging young riders to swap the traditional saunas and sweat runs for gyms and strict diets to try to stamp out drastic dehydration and starvation rituals before races.
Sarah Jane Cullen, an exercise physiologist with the Turf Club, said today’s taller jockeys naturally find it tougher to make the required weights.
“The jockeys are going up in height and are getting bigger. Recent flat-jockey apprentices we were looking at had an average height of 1.68m but back in 2010 the average was 1.65m,” she said.
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“The body mass index [BMI] has dropped down to around 19, whereas before it was around 20. So because they are getting taller, they have to be lighter. The healthy range for a BMI is 18.5 to 25, so they are right at the bottom.”
“On average the body fat is about 13%-13.5% for male apprentice jockeys. You would expect it to be below this,” Cullen said.
“It just shows how bad their diets are. They often eat high-convenience, rubbish food. A lot of them move out of home at 15 or 16 and move in with a group of guys and just grab takeaways and rubbish foods.”
Cullen’s studies have found Irish jockeys lose an average of 4% of their body mass in the 48 hours before weighing in at a race, but some can lose up to 10%.
Joseph O’Brien, a former Irish champion jockey and son of trainer Aidan O’Brien, is 5ft 11in. Before a meeting earlier this year, his father described Joseph as “heavier now than he was 12 months ago”. Willie Carson, a five-time British champion jockey between 1972 and 1983, is 5ft.
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Cullen said the Turf Club was planning long-term research on the effects of the regular, drastic weight-loss regimes practised by jockeys, some of whom can lose up to 10lb during the two days before they saddle up. The minimum standard weight for a flat jockey is 8st 4lb, and 9st 7lb for a jump jockey.
Cullen said it was unlikely that the standards will be changed as that would require a global consensus. “Unless they do it internationally there is no point, because a lot of Irish jockeys race abroad,” she said.
“We’re setting up sports-specific education programmes and support struct- ures. Half of the jockeys aren’t doing any exercise besides riding. They don’t consider themselves athletes.”
She added: “We are trying to encourage them to eat well and perform training other than horse riding so they can manage their weight overall, rather than trying to drop it drastically.
“The Irish racing industry has brought in new minimum weight structures for apprentice jockeys to try to prevent drastic drops in weight for racing, and it has an annual course for new jockeys on the healthier ways to make weight.”
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In future, new jockeys will be required to take part in a one-week course, during which they will see a dietician, perform strength and conditioning training, and consult a sports psychologist to help them deal with a career in racing.
Cullen warned that jockeys who carry out demanding weight-loss regimes over several decades could end up suffering poor bone health and conditions such as diabetes and obesity.
The Turf Club was planning to monitor the health of apprentice jockeys through- out their careers to try to gauge the effects on health of a life in racing, she said.
“We want to track jockeys long-term. We have a baseline data for all the new jockeys who have started and we will follow them to see if their bones are changing or what is going on with them,” said Cullen.