Much ado about something

by Jessica Owers

Women have held up horse racing for centuries, but it’s only in recent times that their contributions have been recognised. Jessica Owers spoke to three women in Perth racing whose careers have helped their men to shine.

In 1946, football player Meryll Frost told a Texas newspaper that “behind every great man there’s a great woman” Twenty years later, Percy Sledge wrote about it The phrase became a catch-cry for women the world over, but in the racing game, it was nothing new.

Horse trainers and studmasters had for centuries climbed the rigging with their wives and partners in the background, knee-deep in livestock, payroll or child rearing Today, the difference is these women get a lot more recognition.

“That’s a good thing,” says Ellie Crispe, whose partner is the Ascot trainer Simon Miller “There are so many great women in this industry who are turning up every day, doing the long hours and taking no credit for it.”

Ellie has been with Simon since 2005, and the couple has a daughter, six-year-old Olivia However, she is also the inhouse vet for Simon Miller Racing Graduating from Murdoch University, she worked up through racetrack practices in Melbourne and Sydney before returning to Perth, where she specialised in Exercise Induced Pulmonary Haemorrhage (EIPH), or bleeders.

“I’ve been a vet for 20 years now,” she says “My first job was at Caulfield, which is where I met Simon I was doing the vet work for Robbie Griffiths We went to Sydney together to work at Warwick Farm, and then I came back to Perth to do my residency at Murdoch with a PhD on bleeders Simon came over and set himself up, and while I was juggling my residency and PhD, I was doing Simon’s vet work at the same time.”

When Olivia arrived, Ellie began to slow down her out-of-house work She continued to consult in outside practices, but most of her career was now devoted to Miller’s horses In a short space of time, the trainer had become a leading light of Perth racing.

“I run my own business independent of Simon, keeping a veterinary license, but I’m at our stables every morning handling the veterinary side of things, and for the rest of the day I run Simon’s business,” Ellie says If Simon Miller is a great man, then Ellie Crispe is the great woman behind him, but that fails to recognise Ellie’s achievement of being a successful, career-driven high achiever all by herself.

“I am proud of that, but I’ve never been one to chase a limelight,” she says “I’ve always been comfortable doing my thing, staying behind the scenes There are plenty of partnerships in racing like mine, which is probably obvious given racehorses are a business that you have to live and breathe every day You need someone in your life who is similar-minded to turn up every day and work every day It just means you’re on the same page ” Trainer-vet partnerships aren’t unusual Dr Emma Vidler, also in Perth, is married to Pinjarra trainer Darren McAuliffe “Racing people go well together,” Ellie says “It’s a community, sometimes more than it is a job It’s not a big deal for any of us to work every day, Christmas Day and weekends We all know what’s required and we turn up.”

Down in Karnup, in the outer suburbs of southern Perth, Danelle and Chloe Pearce know all about it Respectively, they are the partners of training brothers Dan and Ben Pearce, and the two couples live and work alongside each other.

“If you’d asked me years ago about working with family, I’d have told you it never works,” says Danelle “But this does work Everyone has a job to do and everyone stays in their lane I do the books and Chloe rides out, so none of us are stepping on the other’s toes.”

Danelle married Dan Pearce in 2014 and she knew what she was getting into Before marriage she was Danelle Miller, her father being jockey-turned-trainer Stephen ‘SJ’ Miller, her uncle Danny Miller, of Northerly fame

“I’ve been right in it,” she says “I knew about the hours and the disappointments, also the highs There are such high highs in racing and, when things go wrong, such low lows I knew what I was lining up for.”

The Pearce brothers began their training partnership in 2017 They’re just shy of 500 winners Danelle handles the administrative side of things, including payroll, accounts and the myriad paperwork that flies through the business It’s an unsung role, and a critical one.

“I went away from racing for a long time,” she says “When I was 15, I definitely didn’t think I would end up here because racing was such a big part of my life and it always kept my parents busy But now, I couldn’t imagine anything else I love the business we’ve created, the business that the boys have created, and the lifestyle it has allowed us We’re very lucky.”

Danelle and Dan have a four-year-old daughter, Scarlet Nearby, Chloe and Ben have three children – Indi, Sienna and Willow Before marriage, Chloe was jockey Chloe Chatfield with a decade-long resumé of 2600 rides and 210 winners She rode her last winner in 2017 for her husband.

“I was always career-orientated,” Chloe says “I was pretty lucky as an apprentice I had a really good boss, Michael Pateman, and I feel like I had a meaningful career I’d bought a house by the time I was 20 and rode in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne, and I was a very independent and motivated person I had horses growing up, I’ve played polocrosse, and after riding I went to ag school Horses have always been a massive part of my life so it hasn’t surprised me that it’s gone in this direction.”

Chloe’s role in Pearce Racing is riding Every morning, even as her children are readying for school, she is out in boots putting the racehorses through their work Her feedback is critical to the trainers, as is her constant presence for the other staff.

“We’ve got our 4.30am starts and I ride out every morning,” she says “After I had each of my girls, I was back on a horse within two weeks The kids have been around it for that long now they’re well-adapted They are great kids, and very independent kids.”

Aside from their respective roles in the family business, Danelle and Chloe also run the stable’s Women In Racing syndicates Through 2024, that involved the promising Safeguard filly Hold My Wine, who cost them $90,000 at the Magic Millions Perth Yearling Sale She was second on debut at Ascot in October.

Having Danelle and Chloe take care of this part of the business is a huge coup for their husbands because the girls are casting the net wide for new clients The Magic Millions Women in Racing scheme has been responsible for countless new faces into the sport, both on the east and west coasts of the country.

“Chloe and I are quite prominent in the ladies space,” Danelle says “We do lots of events for the stable to encourage women into racing so that’s it’s not just ‘buy your horse, see you later’ You get the experience as well, like a Bubbles ‘n Brunch to meet the horses, and we have a private function at Ascot during the year We’ve tried to do a little more than just aim for the Magic Millions bonus, which I will say we’re still trying to win.”

Traditionally, women have held up men in racing for a long time, but more and more since the 1970s, they have made careers of it Even the term ‘WAG’, which was popularised during the early nineties as an acronym for the ‘wives and girlfriends’ of famous athletes, has become unfashionable and a modern symbol of misogyny According to feminists, it reduced women to little more than cheerleaders and, in 2006, the term was deemed offensive and demeaning to women by the British-based Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Today, the narrative around women supporting their men is better Where women were once backseat passengers, today they are more likely to be at the wheel David Houston, Magic Millions Perth manager, says the role of women in racing alone has risen fantastically.

“It’s been 50-odd years since I raced my first horse and I’ve seen a huge swell in the representation of women in racing,” he says “Girls like Ellie Crispe and Danelle and Chloe Pearce, they contribute hugely to the success of their husbands and, if you were to ask them, I’m sure the boys would tell you it’s a great support to them that their partners are there in the thick of it.”

Chloe backs up this observation, noticing not just more opportunities for women, but a lot more recognition for women contributing.

“That’s probably only happened in the last five to eight years,” she says “And women deserve this recognition because, at the end of the day, people like Ben and Dan aren’t able to do their job without us behind the scenes looking after the children and running the household, not to mention doing what we do in the business itself I know for a fact that Dan and Ben are appreciative of it, and I think that’s why it all works so well.”

The latest statistics in Australia put female jockeys at 39 per cent of the professional riding ranks Forty years ago, this would have been unthinkable While it is estimated that around 250,000 people are employed directly in thoroughbred racing, it’s not yet clear how much of that number is made up of women.

What is clear is that the glass ceiling is breaking and racing, to its credit, is keeping up.