Tribute to an Extrordinary Local Lady and Her Nationwide Legacy

I was wondering if our Royal Examiner readership was aware of the passing of Diane Crump last week at age 77. Crump, a lifelong resident of Front Royal/Warren County, passed in Hospice Care in Winchester.

In 2023, I did a feature story on Crump’s impact as a female jockey on breaking the sex barrier for female jockeys in horse racing nationwide. She was the first female jockey to ride in the Kentucky Derby, the kickoff race of the American Triple Crown series.

Below is that May 1, 2023, Royal Examiner story, republished here in honor of Diane Crump’s life and contributions, not only to her community, but also to horseracing and women’s rights in America:

First Lady Jockey in U.S. Horse Racing Helps Promote Rotary Fundraiser to Eradicate Polio: Diane Crump of Linden

By Malcolm Barr, Sr.

As a former Thoroughbred race horse owner and breeder for some 20 years, I met a lot of jockeys but none quite as loquacious as Linden’s Diane Crump, the first female to ride a horse (Fathom) in the Kentucky Derby (1975) and a lady jockey who scored many firsts way-back-when, including the first to even ride in a parimutuel horse race.

Crump, 74, still the diminutive woman who paved the way for the hundreds of women who entered the sport after her, continues connected with horses, now as a sales agent — “something like a realtor, but I sell horses!” she exclaimed — after completing many years as a trainer following her riding years.

Wearing traditional ladies’ fancy Kentucky Derby headgear, Crystal Cline poses with retired jockey Diane Crump, the first woman horse race rider in the country and the first woman to compete in the Kentucky Derby. Photos by Blake Pierpoint.

No, she was not a regular at our “local” Charles Town Race Track. “I think I only rode there twice,” she said, but she and her family have lived most of their lives in the area – her last house was in Browntown, which she sold 15 years ago to local family physician, Dr. Tommy Ball, and his wife, Christie. She wants the Balls to know what a “great job” she thinks the couple has done in updating the historic house she used to call home on Gooney Manor Loop.

The nation’s first female jockey, Diane Crump of Linden.

I interviewed Crump with the great enthusiasm of a former horseman at a Rotary Club of Front Royal fundraiser to reduce the incidence of polio throughout the world last Friday, April 28.

Crump, in fact, spent much of her time breaking the equivalent of the female jockey’s “glass ceiling” in Kentucky and in Florida, racking up 288 winners in her racing lifetime. But she was well prepared. She’d begun riding ponies as a 4-year-old, and in 1969, just 17 years later, she rode in her first professional Thoroughbred race aboard a horse named “Tiny Star” at Gulfstream Park, Florida. This was followed by riding in some 2,000 races abroad — France, Venezuela — as well as in the United States.

Crump was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame in 2015 and is also in the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in Saratoga, New York.

She tells a story of discrimination and harassment from male jockeys and trainers when she first set out ,but she said she persevered, continuing to enter races, and eventually was accepted.

Left to right, Rotary organizers Laura Potts, Blake Pierpoint, Amy Mawyer, and Phyllis Seely.

So, what was she doing at the Rotary fundraiser at a Main Street eatery and bar on a Friday evening? The Rotary organizing group felt her presence would be appropriate with Kentucky Derby week, opening the following Monday. The race is on Saturday, May 6, and the favored horse is a local one, Forte, born and bred on a farm in Clarke County!

Wanna bet?