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| Staff Writer |
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Rosie Jessop, who has been based in Bahrain for the past four years, won her first race of the 2022-23 season last Friday (the Bapco Cup race for locally-bred horses), and she plans to make it two in a row tomorrow (the Rashid Equestrian and Horseracing Club's 2,200m race, also for locally-bred horses) (REHC).
The 33-year-old Jessop said, "It would be fantastic to win on consecutive weekends" in an exclusive interview at the REHC with the GDN. In the first five weeks of the season the year before, I was the top rider. At first, I was picking winners at every meeting, but then the boys took control.
It would be entertaining to have the opportunity to do this again. Achieving my lifelong ambition of becoming the first female to win the kingdom's jockeys' championship would be even more fantastic.
Jessop's icy blue eyes followed the thundering horses as they galloped away from the track near the REHC grandstand as a pair of jockeys roared by on their majestic mounts.
She invited us to join her at the stable by saying, "Come, let's go to the stable" as she ushered us to her car.
When asked how long she had been coming to the track, Jessop answered, "ten years ago." She then proceeded to drive slowly along a two-way road that runs beside the track. I was requested to come race in Bahrain because "the legendary Allan Smith, who has been training horses at the Royal Stables for years, required a light-weight jockey."
Jessop, who has never been one to shy away from a challenge, found it difficult to decline Allan Smith's request to assist him in training horses at the Royal Stables.
After all, this was a woman who, at the age of 16, in her native county of Essex, decided she was finally ready to pursue her childhood dream of becoming a jockey, wrote to several trainers, and, upon receiving a surprise reply from Sir Mark Prescott — another training legend, who has trained more than 2,000 winners in a career spanning more than 50 years — showed up at his Heath House Stables in Newmarket all by herself.
Jessop raced for Smith for a total of five seasons, beginning each year in Bahrain and concluding with a successful return to Newmarket.
Smith was so delighted by Jessop that he offered her a permanent post. However, Jessop broke her hand early in that first season, and though she gritted her teeth and worked through the pain for the remaining five months, Smith told her at the end of the season that he wanted to modify her contract to merely a rider.
According to Jessop, Nass, a Bahraini business billionaire and internationally acclaimed trainer, has over 90 equines.
"And along with riding for him, I also get the opportunity to ride for other trainers who have horses here," she continued.
She has raced on behalf of His Majesty King Hamad's representative for humanitarian work and youth affairs, SCYS chairman Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, and SCYS first deputy chairman, General Sports Authority chairman, and Bahrain Olympic Committee president Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
"They are owners inside the stable, so I feel very privileged to have been able to ride for them, whenever they have given me the opportunity," said Jessop.
Meanwhile, Jessop has rode triumphs in high-stakes races before. She won at Ascot in 2015, and she has ridden several winners in Bahrain. In 2017, she finished fourth at the Shaikha Fatima bint Mubarak Ladies World Championship in Abu Dhabi, competing for the United Kingdom.
I'm trying to remember how many races I've won here, but I think it was the Crown Prince Cup last year that was my finest accomplishment," Jessop said with a chuckle.