Pioneering jockey Crump dies aged 77

Diane Crump, the pioneering Thoroughbred jockey whose riding breakthroughs paved the way for generations of female riders, died Jan. 1 at a hospital in Winchester, Virginia. She was 77.

For the past few months, she had been battling an aggressive brain cancer known as glioblastoma.

Crump, involved with horses from her childhood until the last months of her life, was best known for being the first woman to compete as a licensed jockey on a race track in the United States when she rode Bridle ‘n Bit in a race at Hialeah Park in South Florida on February 7, 1969. Her ride aboard Bridle ‘n Bit did not result in a win – her horse finished 10th – but it marked a shift in American racing. A year later, she would gain even more ground by becoming the first woman to compete in the Kentucky Derby Churchill Downs.

“It always had an impact on me because I was the first female jockey,” Crump said during a 2017 interview America’s Greatest Race. “I have a small footprint in history that has made a change not only for women’s rights, but for equal rights. Maybe that opened the door for equal rights, and that’s important to me. Wherever you go now, women have the opportunity to drive and that’s great. It gave all of us the opportunity to do what was in our hearts and that was important to me.”

Although Crump’s Derby horse, Fathom, was a non-factor, finishing 15th in a field of 17, having a woman in the saddle for America’s biggest race opened doors for other female riders in the decades that followed. In addition to Crump, the other women who have raced in the Kentucky Derby include Patricia Cooksey, Andrea Seefeldt, Julie Krone, Rosemary Homeister Jr. and Rosie Napravnik.

Crump’s contributions are celebrated in the Kentucky Derby Museum’s “Right to Ride” exhibit, which launched in 2020 and explores the journey of women who fought for the opportunity to compete at the highest level of horse racing. Among the exhibits are the boots she wore while riding at Churchill Downs.

In a statement from Churchill Downs on Jan. 2, racetrack president Mike Anderson called Crump “an iconic pioneer who admirably achieved her childhood dreams” and added that “she will forever be respected and fondly remembered in the history of horse racing.”

Crump’s story made her the subject of the biography “A Woman in the Starting Gate,” written by Mark Shrager, and the Christine Lalonde-produced and directed documentary “Darling of the Derby.”

Crump was married to Fathom’s trainer, Don Divine, from 1969 to 1987. They had a daughter, Della.

“She was very stubborn, but never understood the word no, which could be frustrating,” Della Payne said Jan. 2. “But her friends reminded me that it allowed her to achieve what she had achieved because she never took no for an answer. She fought hard.”

In addition to Della, Crump is survived by a sister, Linda Suave; a brother, Burt Crump; and three grandchildren: Farah Payne, Blake Payne and Lenah Payne. Her ex-husband, Divine, died in 2013 at the age of 86.

Della Payne recalled how Burt Crump found out his sister was riding in the Kentucky Derby. While serving in Vietnam, Burt was drafted by fellow service members who were listening to a radio broadcast of the 1970 Run for the Roses.

“They said, ‘Hey, there’s a woman with the same last name as you in the Derby, and he said, ‘Well, let me hear that,'” Payne said of the story she was told. “He didn’t know it, but that was his sister, and they all listened to it together in Vietnam.”

Crump became horse-oriented early in her life and even worked with them and other animals in her senior years, including her three precious miniature dachshunds.

She grew up in Milford, Conn., as “the only person in her family who ever rode a horse, think of a horse,” Payne said, noting that her mother became particularly focused on riding after her first pony ride at age 4.

Later, she and her parents “moved to Florida, I think to the Tampa area, and the old farmhouse they bought had two old horses in it. They hadn’t been touched in forever… That was her first project, and one day she came across Tampa Bay Downs, and the rest was history.”

Crump raced from 1969 to 1998 and achieved 228 victories. She sometimes faced open hostility related to being a woman in a male-dominated sport and suffered serious injuries, including breaking her tibia, fibula, a knee and an ankle.

“I remember the doctor saying, ‘I hope you’re not Catholic.’ And she said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Because you’re never going to kneel again,’” her daughter recalled. “But she started competing again.”

She continued riding until accumulated injuries led to her retirement.

According to Equibase, Crump started training thoroughbred racehorses and won 14 races against 253 starters between 1990 and 1998. She then founded Diane Crump Equine Sales as an agent in the Virginia sport horse community. She began living in Lindon, Virginia, in the early 2000s.

In Virginia, she devoted herself to animal therapy and volunteered for more than a decade in hospitals, assisted living facilities, and hospice care.

Friends and those she interacted with would later offer Crump support. Her life was celebrated in November, while she was still alive to appreciate it. On Christmas Eve she visited her home one last time.

No date has yet been set for a memorial service, but plans are underway to bury Crump’s cremated remains in her parents’ casket.