Jockeys in horse races have always been small, light people in order to keep less weight on the horse and hopefully allow the horse to go faster. Learn how horse jockeys must meet certain weight requirements in order to complete in a race with information from a former professional jockey in this free video on jockeys.
Hi, I'm Frank Lovato Jr, I'm a professional jockey and I'd like to tell you a little bit about what I know or what is believed to be some history on the evolution of the jockey here in America. Most people when you think of jockey you think of a very small person, which is true because jockeys have to are required to make certain weights. But to give you some history on jockeys in the beginning, as far as we knew that it was the very wealthy that were involved with the breeding and the racing stables with the thoroughbreds and I always told that it was the slaves that were actually the jockeys for their owners and they would pick, before there was a scale of weights instituted, they picked their smallest, lightest riders to be their jockeys because the theory is the smaller and the lighter the jockey is, the less weight the horse carries obviously. The less weight the horse carries, the faster and further that they can run. Now with that philosophy in time would actually in the later 1800's would put in place something that we call the scale of weights which are the weight assignments that are given to this day in horse racing with racehorses. So as even time as now, jockeys are still required to make these racing weights, they're still very small people so that's kind of some history why jockeys are small.
Specialty: Horseracing/Jockey
