Diane Crump:

A Horse-Racing Pioneer’s Life InThe Saddle

A New Book by Mark Shrager

“’Hey, Bert, there’s a woman jockey riding in the Kentucky Derby this year, first time that’s ever happened. Can you believe it? And her name is Crump. Coincidence, huh?’” Said a squad member to Bert Crump, persuading him to join the others in listening to the Armed Forces Radio broadcast of the Kentucky Derby. Bert was tired from a tough day in the field in Vietnam. “There was only one possible explanation for a woman named Crump riding in the Kentucky Derby and coincidence had nothing to do with it,” says Bert in his recollection of that day. He asked if her first name was Diane. “Yea, that’s her name – Diane Crump, do you know her?” said the man. “It’s my sister!” replied Bert. That was on May 2, 1970. Jockey, Diane Crump made racing history that day. “It was a surreal feeling being in Vietnam . . .while my sister rode in the Kentucky Derby with my buddies cheering her on,” recounts Bert in Mark Shrager’s book, Diane Crump A Horse-Racing Pioneer’s Life in the Saddle.

An image of the book cover caught my eye while I perused Facebook posts. I quickly returned to the image and learned of the newly published book. Being an insatiable horse girl myself, I had to know more. I remembered the furor of a female jockey in the Kentucky Derby. “What’s the big deal?” I had thought, “As long as  they are good to the horse, stay on, and stay out of the way of the other horses, what difference is it if a man or a woman is riding?.”

I had to feature the new book about this remarkable athlete who happened to share my passions for horses, riding, and speed. After some introductory emails, making “friends” with Mark Shrager and Diane Crump on Facebook, and a unique relationship formed. I read the book, underlining important aspects and dog-earing corners of pages. I wrote a first draft.

I reread the book. This time, I put little sticky arrows on the pages I wanted to cite. “Passion.” “Love of the horse.” “Had to ride.” “Exhilaration of speed.” “She wanted to inhale the atmosphere, to ride, to care for horses, to learn everything about them,”  “… yearned for …having dramatic horseback adventures… being with close friends, in a school-free environment, and riding, riding, riding, ”writes Mark. He talks about “Diane’s unstoppable work ethic.”

It is important to understand that certain people are born with an “extra gene” – the gene that makes horses irresistible – their fragrance (some might call it an odor; a stench), their sweat, their breath, their silken hair, their eyelashes, their snorts (and yes, their gas and gut sounds are thrilling), their personalities, and their many “buttons.” This book is about such a woman.

What makes the story in the book special is that Diane’s mother encouraged her to “Follow your dreams.” Jean Crump was her daughter’s biggest advocate. She became Diane’s horse-riding  friends’ favorite mother. Many of her friends wished for a mother just like her. What they did not know in their childhood was that Jean was special not only for her nurturing and encouraging her daughter’s  horse passion, but for her unwavering trust in her faith and her remarkable dreams that she wrote down and often illustrated in paintings.

On my third reading of the book, it became clear that while this is a story about horse-racing, riding, and a tenacious woman, it is also about a mother’s journey with God, who, trusting through her faith, opened her hand and let her little bird fly. It took tremendous faith to agree to let the 16-year-old Diane travel with a racehorse trainer and live in unfamiliar housing with people she had never met so that she could to continue her horse training and riding journey. Her faith quelled her concerns.

“How did you happen to select Diane’s story for your book,” I asked Mark. He replied that he had finished his prior book, The Great Sweepstakes of 1877, and was looking to write the next book. He had made many friends on Facebook through his first book .Diane was one of those friends. He told me, “When I realized there had been no books written about her I called and asked whether I might write her biography.  I was excited to tell the story of an amazing person who was so much more than just a jockey.”

Diane was ready to tell her story. Diane settled in Virginia. While no longer racing, she is a horse broker. She said, “I wanted to find someone to stick to the principal of what I wanted told. Mark did exactly that.”

Author, Mark Shrager,  lives in California. He has been handicapping horse races since his high school days. He is not a rider. His father was adamantly opposed to gambling and horse racing. “I got into handicapping mostly to annoy my father, but I won enough money with which to buy my first car, ” he said. Two people, living on opposite coasts; with different parental experiences; a Christian woman and a Jewish man; happened to share the exact birthdate – 3000 miles apart – Mark in Los Angeles and Diane in Connecticut as their birth state. A writer / handicapper and a jockey, came together to tell a remarkable story.

In speaking with both Mark and Diane, I asked whether the book result was what they had expected. Mark told me, “The happiest part of this process was Diane reading it and telling me, ‘This is exactly what I wanted! Thank you!’” Diane added, “It leaves nothing out without saying too much!”

When you read the book, you will discover that it is packed with thrills, adventures, and against-all-odds finishes. You will learn about a tousle in a match race with an encroaching jockey holding her saddle cloth to slow her horse, and about the incomparable feeling of crossing the finish line first. Mark’s elegant storytelling made my heart beat faster as I imagined the wind in my ears and the sound of thundering hooves upon the track.

It is not often that horse racing and Christian faith turn up in the same sentence, much less in the same book. Like an onion with many layers, the book wraps a child’s heart for a pony; with a will to ride and a love for speed; with a faithful mother (and supportive father and family); with grit, focus, and determination;  covered by love and grace. 

The  little girl who loved horses shattered the bias and presumption that “Racing is too tough for women.” In this book, you will read about how Diane’s love of horses and riding and her focus in spite of protests and objections, sustained her throughout her career. She rode a thousand morning workouts, on a thousand difficult, opinionated thoroughbreds that no one else would ride. “I rode every bad tempered horse …, if they reared up, ran off, if they were stupid, that’s what I got. I had to prove myself over and over again.” She raced in an “Under the microscope atmosphere that no other jockey in history had ever experienced,” writes Mark. She lived her dream and rode in the Kentucky Derby. Diane’s message is about the faith and grace that took her to the heights of her profession and that continue sustain her.

Mark dedicates the book to “Every female athlete everywhere.” He told me, “What awakened my interest in women athletes was Diane.  Learning all she’d gone through to be a jockey led me to recognize that women athletes in many sports were probably encountering the same sorts of prejudice and negativity Diane confronted.  Dedicating the book to female athletes was my way of encouraging them to live their dreams and overcome the naysayers, like Diane did.”

This book is about horse racing. It is about women’s equity. It about a young girl’s determination to learn about horse and to ride them.  It is about faith. The message is universal. The book is available in hardback and on Kindle . It is a must read for every parent with a passionate child, every horse-crazed person, for people of faith and for those in search of theirs, and for everyone who loves to root for the underdog.