Most quit. The ones who don't become the Hall of Famers.
If you have never sat on a racehorse, you do not understand "speed." A thoroughbred gallops at 40 miles per hour. For a jockey crouched in a "monkey crouch" (knees bent, pelvis off the saddle, back flat parallel to the horse’s spine), the wind resistance is brutal. But the real challenge is the centrifugal force.
When a field of 12 horses enters a tight turn at 35 mph, the jockey is subjected to 3 to 4 Gs of lateral force. To avoid sliding off, they must balance on the iron stirrups—which are only two inches wide—with the strength of their inner thighs.
Unlike a Formula 1 driver, who is strapped into a carbon fiber seat, a jockey has no seatbelt. If the horse stumbles or clips heels, the jockey is launched into the air at the speed of a car crash. This is why jockeys have incredibly dense bone density in their lower legs and a reflex system finely tuned for "getting your feet out of the irons" the millisecond the horse falls. jockey
Being a great rider is only half the battle; getting the ride is the other half.
To the untrained eye, a jockey is just holding on. To the expert, the reins are a telephone line between human and horse.
A jockey communicates via "feeling." A slight tickle of the left rein tilts the horse's neck, shifting weight to the right hoof to turn. A "hold" (shortening the reins) slows the breathing. A "loose" (flicking the wrist forward) gives the horse free will. Most quit
There are three archetypes of jockey riding styles:
The best jockeys switch between these styles fluidly, reading the horse’s ear movement and breathing patterns to make split-second decisions.
A jockey is often described as the "coach on the field." Before the race, they study the past performances of every horse in the field. They memorize the track biases (does the rail favor speed or closers?) and the running styles of their competitors. The best jockeys switch between these styles fluidly,
If a young person dreams of being a jockey, the path is brutal.
Only 1 in 100 exercise riders ever graduates to a professional racing jockey.