Diane Crump, the pioneering jockey who made history as the first woman to ride professionally in a horse race in 1969 and subsequently became the first female jockey in the Kentucky Derby a year later, has died at the age of 77.
Her daughter, Della Payne, confirmed to The Associated Press that Crump passed away on Thursday night in hospice care in Winchester, Virginia. She had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer in October.
Crump’s groundbreaking ride at Hialeah Park in Florida on February 7, 1969, marked a significant moment in sports history. She went on to secure 228 victories throughout her career, riding her final race in 1998, just a month before her 50th birthday.
Crump was among several women who successfully campaigned for jockey licenses, though they often faced resistance, with male jockeys sometimes boycotting or threatening to boycott races if a woman was competing.
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, Diane Crump: A Horse Racing Pioneer’s Life in the Saddle. 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.
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 “Smile for Me, My Diane.” Crump, on a 50-1 longshot called Bridle ’n Bit, finished 10th, but the barrier had been broken. A month later, Bridle ’n Bit gave Crump her first victory at Gulfstream Park.
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.
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.
The racetrack president at Churchill Downs, Mike Anderson, said in a statement on Friday that Crump “will be forever respected and fondly remembered in horse racing lore.”
He noted that Crump, who had been riding since age 5 and galloping young Thoroughbreds since she was a teenager, “was an iconic trailblazer who admirably fulfilled her childhood dreams.”
Chris Goodlett, of the Kentucky Derby Museum, said “Diane Crump’s name stands for courage, grit, and progress.” He added: “Her determination in the face of overwhelming odds opened doors for generations of female jockeys and inspired countless others far beyond racing.”
After retiring from racing, Crump settled in Virginia and started a business helping people buy and sell horses.
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.
Payne said when her mother went into assisted living a month ago, she was already “quasi-famous” in the medical center because of how much time she had spent there, and a “steady stream” of doctors and nurses came to see her. One of the last people to visit her was the man who mowed her lawn.
Her daughter said Crump would never take “no” for an answer, whether it was becoming a jockey or helping someone in need.
“I wouldn’t say she was as competitive as she was stubborn,” Payne said. “If someone was counting on her, she could never let someone down.”
Late in life, Crump’s mottos were literally tattooed on her forearms: “Kindness” on the left, “Compassion” on the right.
Crump will be cremated, and her ashes interred between her parents in Prospect Hill Cemetery in Front Royal, Virginia.
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