Mark Shrager - Diane Crump: A Horse-Racing Pioneers Life in the Saddle

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Here is a book that was truly a group effort. So many to thankso many who contributed to my understanding of Diane Crumps once-in-a-lifetime story.

The obvious place to begin is with Diane herself. Throughout the process of writing this book, Diane has proven to be a woman of honesty and candor. She was free with her information, free with her humor, equally free with her praise and her critiques. She became my teachera much-needed onein areas related to the day-to-day treatment and handling of horses. Perhaps most importantly, she had faith from the beginning that despite gaps in my knowledge about the workings of the racetrack stable, I could get the job done.

Let me explore that from the beginning business for a moment, because for Diane and me, the phrase has a special meaning. When I first spoke to Diane about the possibility of writing her biography, she agreed to send me information that might be useful. Materials shortly began arriving via e-mail, and I was stopped cold when I read the opening sentence of a one-page autobiography she had penned: I was born in Milford, Connecticut, on May 18, 1948. This must be a typo, I thought. May 18, 1948, happens to be my own birthdate. When I communicated this amazing coincidence to Diane, she decided that I must have been intended from the start to tell her story.

During the course of our communications, Diane proved to be generous in unfolding her story. During our phone conversations, and later, when my wife and I visited her in Virginia and enjoyed her warm hospitality, her ironic humor and her ever-present, booming laugh were highlights of every interaction.

Diane is modest to the point of exaggeration, but it is not a false modesty; rather, it is the humility of a person who recognizes herself as the creation of a superior being, and reserves her highest praise for her creator.

She described herself in an early e-mail as a hard-headed little nobody with a dream I wouldnt let die, and this description proved to be roughly two-thirds accurate. Dianes hard-won career is proof of the hard-headed part, as is the part about not letting the dream die. But the word nobody belongs nowhere in that description. Diane Crump is, in fact, more than merely another somebody; she is a person of historic importance.

When I began my first conversation with Diane, I expressed my admiration for her accomplishments, stating, Its an honor to speak with you. Her response was one of genuine astonishment at the very idea: Well, I dont see why it would be. As I said, Diane Crump is a very modest person.

As the final chapter demonstrates, she is also a caring, giving, genuinely good person. With her beloved dachshunds, she battles for those whose mental or physical challenges have negatively affected their ability to advocate for themselves. She supports an orphanage in Africa that she has never seen, helping to improve the lives of children she will likely never meet. One young man has made his way through school on Dianes kindness and generosity; another is seeking to become a physician in Uganda, with Dianes assistance.

Thank you, Diane, for everything you brought to this project. Whether or not you believe it to be, it is an honor to have been allowed to tell your story.

My wife, Dr. Fran Wintroub, deserves an enormous round of thanks. I said as much as I could possibly say about Fran in the acknowledgments of my previous book, The Great Sweepstakes of 1877, and perhaps I was too effusive, for early in the preparation of this volume she extracted a promise that I would tone things down. And Ive done so. But Fran is still everything I said in The Great Sweepstakes, and more.

My agent, Greg Aunapu of the Salkind Literary Agency, was, as usual, my bastion of knowledge and advice on every aspect of publishing, bringing his abundant skills and expertise to the promotion of this book. He was the first agent to read The Great Sweepstakes and declare, Sure, I can sell that, which I count as The Moment I Became an Author. Greg, thank you for another success story.

And thank you to Niels Aaboe and the staff at Globe Pequot and Lyons Press for all youve done, and all you will do, to help make this book successful.

Librarians! How I love librarians! A huge, huge thank-you to Roda Ferraro, librarian at the Keeneland Library in Lexington, Kentucky, who helped me find a trove of articles about Diane Crump and the other female jockeys of the era. Roda then found many of the photos that supplement the text of this volume, and was instrumental in helping obtain for me the permission of the various copyright holders to display them. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this book could not have been completed without Roda Ferraro and the amazing library she oversees. Thank you, Roda, for all that you did to make this possible.

And thank you also to Vivian Montoya, who runs the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association (CTBA) Library in Arcadia, California, my operating base for writing about Thoroughbred racing. Vivian played her usual vital role in providing help and support to this demanding, information-starved turf writer. May the CTBA and Keeneland libraries thrive forever.

Thank you to Allan Carter of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York, who helped with the sometimes-maddening task of gathering statistical data about the women jockeys of the Class of 1969.

Frank Tocher has again served as my photographic guru, converting low-definition photos into the high-definition photos you see in this book. For this author, for this book, the writing was the easy part; locating appropriate photos was difficult, and rendering them book-worthy would have been impossible. Franks amazing technological skills made the task entirely less nightmarish. And Frank, I hope youll be pleased that this time, I spelled your name correctly.

Thanks also to Jason Neff, whose production Jocks, detailing the history of women jockeys, should long ago have become a feature film or a multi-segment TV series. Jason offered a helping hand early in this project, and was the first to read the completed rough draft for accuracy and content, offering suggestions and comments reflecting the perspective of both a racing fan and a historian. Thank you, Jason, for your willingness to help, and for your expertise.

Thank you to Adam Coglianese, who was instrumental in granting the New York Racing Associations approval for a number of the photos in this volume.

Newspapers played a vital role in compiling information about Diane Crumps extraordinary career, and two websites in particular were the sine qua non for this book. Thank you to Newspapers.com and the online New York Times archive for helping me fill in the outlines of Diane Crumps story.

Diane Crump: A Horse-Racing Pioneers Life in the Saddle is my first effort at a biography, the first book Ive written that required I interview people. This introverted, bookish author will be forever grateful that the individuals Diane asked me to interview were, each and every one, open and friendly and interesting, and anxious to contribute their experiences and memories of their good friend. And so, thank you to Bonnie Crank, Bert Crump, Diane Sissy Divine, Nora Dixon, Marcia Howard, Frankie Nicholas, Della Payne, Betty Perry, Carl Pollard, Helen Richards, Kim Rothburg, and Glenn Wismer, for enriching Dianes story with your memories.

Finally, I would like to thank and pay one more tribute to the Class of 69, that courageous, unstoppable coterie of female pioneers who refused to accept that their sport must remain male-only, and who would not stop dreaming and working and achieving until the barriers were broken. Each of you is an important part of this story; each of you lived her dreams and found her calling, and, in Dianes words, placed her footprint in the sands of progress. I count each of you, whether you rode in one race or in hundreds, as a true hero.