Jockeys

So, the next sport I’m going to mention is not a common one and actually a sport that people wouldn’t expect athletes to have an eating disorder in. However, jockeys eating habits are probably one of the worse.

I was recently introduced to horse racing this year and in order to understand it, I had to learn about the weights the horses can hold. According to an article I found on Fox News, horses can hold from 112-122 pounds on them while racing. This includes the jockey and the equipment. I’d also like to point out that the equipment weighs about seven pounds and is pretty light. So in the equipment weighs only seven pounds that must mean that the jockey, at most, weighs 115 pounds.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/in-kentucky-derby-race-against-weight-takes-jockeys-to-a-dark-side

I’d like to mention that these are grown men that are riding the horses and they starve themselves just, so they could be the lightest and their horse wins. I found another article that talks a little bit more about their eating habits and one of the first lines is so interesting to me.

“Jockeys will engage in very restrictive diets and extreme behaviors in order to meet strict and specific weight requirements,” this is from the eating disorder hope website. Underneath it, it talks about what they do to lose the weight which includes puking, abusing laxitives, skipping meals, and more.

https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/information/body-image/the-dark-side-of-horse-racing-weight-control-in-jockeys

I know a lot of people don’t recognize jockeys and what they do; a lot of people actually don’t even care for their sport, but we should still focus on the fact that their sport probably has a worse eating diet then wrestlers have.

Now both the sports do have requirements for their weight but personally I feel like jockeys have it a little bit worse then wrestlers. I feel like they have to lose more weight and in the first article from Fox News, they can lose up to 10 pounds a day.

I’ve talked about a decent amount of sports in this blog but none of them are this extreme. Gymnastics weighs their athletes but doesn’t force them to lose 10 pounds a day and wrestling has their requirements but again they aren’t losing 10 pounds a day.

It’s important to weigh a certain weight, especially in this because the horses can first off hold only so much weight but second race and be able to win with so much weight on them. However, the weight limit for these grown adults is pretty extreme. Adults shouldn’t be weighing around 115 pounds.

People are aware about jockeys eating habits, it’s not new to them either. It just may be time for someone to do something about a jockey’s eating and change it.

This is a picture of jockey Daniel Porcu.