The woman sitting in front of me, drinking coffee in the sunshine of London’s Notting Hill is describing how, as a 20-year-old trying to break into horse racing, she was sexually assaulted, though there is no terminology of that kind, no names, no lawyers raking over the detail. At what point in time does abuse constitute an historical crime? Not by 1978, to judge by Karen Wiltshire’s story.
Back then, she never wanted a fuss or the kind of controversy that might mark her out as ‘a problem’ for the racing fraternity and even now, she glosses over the many times she would be jumped on from behind in a race yard stable by men who would try to rip her top off.
‘Testosterone-fuelled lads,’ she calls those who tried this, and her career in racing seems to have been a constant process of self-preservation against the sexual gropers. ‘It could be dangerous because you’re in a box with a horse which is kicking out and you’re trying to fight off a chap that’s groping you,’ she says. ‘You could be caught unawares. If you were wary, you would be fine.’
So casually was it accepted in the 1970s, that the stable ‘lads’ who had groped her one day would display no embarrassment the next. ‘I had been told, “You have to fit in here,”’ she says. ‘Yes, it was sexual abuse. But I didn’t want them to think I couldn’t cope.’
Karen Wiltshire (above) has opened up on how she was sexually assaulted and groped by ‘testosterone-fuelled lad’s as a 20-year-old jockey trying to break into horse racing
According to Wiltshire, footballer turned trainer Mick Channon (above) once told her it would not be safe to give the daughter of one of her friends some experience working in his yard
Years later, Wiltshire asked Mick Channon, the Southampton footballer turned trainer, to give the daughter of one of her friends some experience working in his yard. Channon, who co-owned horses with Kevin Keegan at the time, said it would not be safe. ‘He told me, “I know what the lads are like are in there,”’ Wiltshire says.
Everyone just seemed to laugh it off. Her boyfriend at the time brought in a pink wheelbarrow for her to muck out with, bearing the words ‘Keep your thieving hands off.’ She was his property, not theirs.
Mail Sport columnist IAN HERBERT
Wiltshire bears neither grievance nor grudge about this. When our conversation opens out into talk of her being out on the course, racing, she seems transported back through the mists of time, to days with the wind in her face, hooves clicking, jockeys screaming at their mounts. ‘Oh how I wanted that,’ she says. ‘Rides and winning rides. It was worth it. Everything was worth it. I’d do it all again.’
She rode into history – becoming the first woman to win a UK Flat race, on September 14, 1978, on a mount called The Goldstone, in the 3.45 at Salisbury. You’ll find no monument, though, and barely a word of newspaper copy. Her bosses ordered her to avoid publicity after that win, for fear it would ‘sexualise’ her. So when the Mail on Sunday cottoned on to her story and asked for an interview she declined. She’s the pioneer you’ve never heard of.
I recall few stories of courage through adversity quite like hers in the realm of sport – a space where Wiltshire barely dared even present herself as a woman. ‘Don’t let them know you’re a girl,’ her boss told her. When she raced, she cut her hair short and was listed incognito, as ‘K Wiltshire.’
And then there was the state of near anorexia to which she was reduced to ‘make weight’ for some races. She was instructed to drop to 6st 10bs on one occasion, a level of starvation prohibited today.
The testimonies of recent years from female jockeys such Bryony Frost (above) reveal that the racing has still not emerged from bullying, misogyny and abuse Wiltshire experienced
That gender deception was short-lived. When she raced at Warwick – the Haseley Handicap, in early 1979 – a professional male rider thrashed at her with his whip, in the days before racecourse CCTV. That was also the day another professional jumped on her in as she changed in an area partitioned off for her in the men’s changing rooms.
Nearly half a century on, Wiltshire has finally told her story in an autobiography, ‘No Place for a Girl’ (Pitch Publishing, £25), written with the former Daily Mail journalist Nick Townsend. It is a compelling, insuppressibly optimistic story from which joy shines out, despite a riding career which proved painfully brief.
The testimonies of recent years from female jockeys such Bryony Frost reveal that the racing has still not emerged from bullying, misogyny and abuse Wiltshire experienced. ‘We’ve lost many women to the sport because of that,’ she says. She remains a campaigning voice for women jockeys.
Wiltshire reflects, with typical alacrity, that she prevailed because of an education at an all-girls’ Catholic school which helped her fend off the gropers. ‘At the Convent of the Cross we’d had judo lessons,’ she says. ‘I knew the moves to deal with them.’
‘No Place for a Girl’, by Karen Wiltshire (Pitch Publishing, £25) is out now.
Ditching Lineker would destroy Match of the Day
When Gary Lineker’s representatives were asked last week if his time at Match of the Day would be coming to an end at the conclusion of this season, a cryptic reply stated simply, ‘Operation Shrimp’, with an image of the flag of the Republic of Benin, in West Africa. An obscure reference to a foiled 1977 coup against that country’s revolutionary communist party leader Mathieu Kekekou.
I hope Gary Lineker (above) will be at the helm of Match of the Day for many seasons to come
Lineker has been Match of the Day’s presenter since 1999, when he succeeded Des Lynam
Lineker may not wish stray too far into comparisons with Kekekou, who enlisted the help of North Korea to stay in power, and ordered the shooting of politician found to be having an affair with his wife. But the response bore out the easy touch, wit and intelligence of an individual who does not take himself too seriously and who has always wanted to stay on in that role. ‘He loves the show. It’s been his life,’ a friend of his told me earlier this year.
The effort Lineker invested in making himself our outstanding football presenter is not generally known. The former Match of the Day editor Brian Barwick describes in his excellent book, ‘Are you Watching the Match Tonight?’ which traces the development of modern football broadcasting, how Lineker’s appetite to learn the craft led him to sessions shadowing the BBC2 Friday afternoon show, ‘Sport on Friday’, presented by the late Helen Rollason in the mid-1990s.
Once the programme had been recorded, Barwick and his team would do mock run-throughs of the programme – this time with Lineker in the hot-seat, confronting a video tape failure, a guest not turning up, or the show falling ‘off air’. ‘He would work at the craft and ultimately become a presenter,’ Barwick writes.
Those with experience of how excellent football broadcasting works see beyond the lumpen superficiality of simply choosing a face that conforms with the right ‘optics’ for a more ‘youth-centred’ show, which a change-obsessed BBC appear to be planning.
Ex-Match of the Day editor Brian Barwick (above) outlined in his book how Lineker has invested considerable effort making himself an outstanding television presenter over the years
One experienced football TV producer tells me, of Lineker: ‘There is no one else who brings that experience of being able to do a live show, and who can handle the gaps and move a show on, whilst also having that football background. He is the best by a distance.’
I hope Lineker will be at the helm for many seasons to come. His suggestion on Monday that he may not remain with the show because he is ‘getting old’ speaks only to an uncertainty of the BBC’s creating. Don’t destroy this, BBC. Preserve it. Leave our show alone.
