As you can see below the average jockey is 10′ 1″ tall. But, for our purposes, we’ll focus on the 5′ 8″-5′ 9″ range. Jockey stature is inversely proportional to the number of races that they have been in. So if the average jockey has raced more than 50 times, they’re probably a little taller than the average jockey.
I realize that’s not the only kind of tall guy. But if you look at jockeys with average figures, you’ll notice most of them seem much taller than their “average” jockeys. And they’re almost always the tallest. For a jockey that averages between 5 feet 7.25 inches and 5 feet 8 inches, they’re likely a couple inches higher than that average jockey.
This isn’t to say that being tall doesn’t make you a better jockey. It’s just to say that for most of the average jockey’s career, being a taller guy makes you a better jockey.
When you look at the number of races (percentages of average jockeys that race at least 50 times), you’ll notice that the majority of jockeys that get that many races are taller than the average jockey.
So what exactly do you think all those tall guys are doing?
Well, being tall makes the jockey faster. And that makes for a good sport.
In today’s professional horse racing, an average jockey is just as likely a competitor as a top contender. And for the top contender to win, the average jockey must be the fastest. So having a lot of tall jockeys is not a bad thing.
Some of them probably have talent, but some of them lack it. And that’s OK. They have something else in common with their taller counterparts. They’ve been able to work and work and work to get as far as they have. And that makes them good athletes.
Most people in the jockey sport don’t know anything about that.
This is what happens in the horse racing world after a certain height. The average jockey’s potential (predictability) gets wiped off the board by those other horse’s potential. And that’s just what it is for horses that are much, much taller than the average average jockey.
It’s a vicious circle. Jockey height (and race ability) can become more important than the average height of the horses
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