No Place for a Girl
No Place for a Girl is the little-known but hugely inspirational story of pioneering woman jockey Karen Wiltshire and her fight for acceptance in the male-dominated world of 1970s horseracing.
There was a time when female professional jockeys were not welcome in British horseracing. But then one dauntless rider confronted the misogyny, prejudice and bullying she encountered both in the stables where she worked and on the racecourse, refused to accept that this environment was ‘no place for a girl’ and ultimately won her personal battle.
This book tells the moving, humorous, controversial and on occasions outright shocking story of four tumultuous years in Karen’s life, when she rode roughshod over prevailing attitudes and became the first woman to reach a significant staging post in the fight for equality, when she rode against some of the sport’s most illustrious names. Her obsession brought the reward she craved. She became the first female professional jockey to win a Flat race, beating her male counterparts.
Karen Wiltshire has collaborated with Nick Townsend to tell her story. Nick worked as a sportswriter at the Daily Mail and then The Independent on Sunday and has freelanced for publications such as The Sunday Times, Racing Post and Racing Ahead, for whom he still writes. His previous books include the co-authored autobiographies of Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Ben Ainslie, plus the best-selling Sure Thing: The Greatest Coup in Horse Racing History.