Lonely at the Top: Women in Show Jumping

The first week of every month, Erynn Ballard checks the FEI ranking page.

Listing close to 3,000 riders on the Jumping Longines Ranking, riders can see where they landed on the world list, who moved up, and which athletes took the coveted spots in the top 100.

This month, Ballard was in for a surprise. Repeatedly refreshing the FEI page to get the updated list without any luck, she only heard about her ranking when she was first congratulated at a show.

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“Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday… I had checked a couple times to see where I was and it hadn’t been updated,” said Ballard. “Then somebody at the horse show told me, ‘oh, congratulations, you’re now the leading female rider’.”

Ranked 30th, just above Germany’s Marcus Ehning, Great Britain’s Harry Charles and Laura Kraut from the United States, Ballard is not only ranked as the top rider in Canada, but also the top female show jumper in the world, a huge accomplishment and boost for female professionals in the industry.

“I am proof that it’s not unachievable.”

“The last five years has really been kind of a big rocket ship… but it’s never instant. The FEI rankings change every single month, but even if it’s only for this month, at this moment, right now in my life I am the best at something in the world! Sometimes it’s a little bit hard to grasp how significant or important or just how cool that is,” says Ballard with a laugh.

But the “cool factor” does not take away from the work Ballard puts in, particularly considering this is still a largely male-dominated sport.

Vanessa Mannix hitting the trail.

The stats are quite surprising, explains fellow Canadian show jumper Vanessa Mannix. Ranked 145th, she notes that women like Ballard and other Canadians, including Amy Millar, (ranked 109th) and Tiffany Foster, (ranked 41st), are all still in the minority.

“I was really surprised when I ran the numbers on it,” says Mannix. “I’ve always been really proud of the fact that we’re lucky enough to do a sport where men and women compete against each other. I think that there’s a great level playing field, so when I actually went through and looked at the split between men and women in the top 100, I was amazed at how few women there were.”

Mannix says she expected to see a 60/40 male to female split or 75/25 proportion at the very least. In reality, when she analyzed the top 100 a couple of years back, she counted only 11 women.

“I was quite surprised by that,” says Mannix. “When I went through and really studied it, you kind of had your split between the really, really top professionals, which literally you could almost count on one hand, and then a couple who were really, really talented amateurs that kind of broke into the top 100 by having their own horses. But I was really surprised at how unequal the split was at the top.” Things have improved somewhat; there are currently 19 women in the top 100, representing 10 nations.

“I can tell you as somebody who has two children and runs a business and wants to climb the world ranking list, it is very demanding.”

Mannix is not the only one keeping track of female representation. Equestrian Amy Millar says she takes the time to count how many fellow moms are among the riders at shows – many of the results pointing to the lack of representation.

“It gets really fun when you start doing that,” says Millar with an exasperated laugh. “Often, there’s usually like two or three in a class, women with children… and I think that those two things probably are correlated. In a way, I can tell you as somebody who has two children and runs a business and wants to climb the world ranking list, it is very demanding.”

Although Millar, mother to kids aged three and 11, notes that while being a woman and a mother in the industry is not “harder”, it does have its own implications – some of which manifest in the unique responsibilities of top female riders.

Amy Millar with husband Brad Jukosky, daughter Lily and son Alex. (Amy Millar Facebook photo)

“I think that as a generalization men have fewer roles to worry about,” says Millar, reflecting on the challenges many women might face in the industry. “I think if you talk to Tiffany and Erynn, they don’t know anything different either, than running the barn, organizing whoever it may be. Whether it’s the owner, the boss, fathers, trainers, whoever it is, organizing all that stuff, keeping the clients happy, then going home, figuring out dinner.”

Although men and women have equal access to the sport, it is these secondary factors, including the lifestyle, which may impact female participation in a variety of industries, suggests Ballard.

“In any industry I think that probably females are going to face challenges that men don’t have to face on a day-to-day basis,” says Ballard. “But also, I think that no one should feel obligated to do anything other than what they want and what they have a passion for.”

Specific to show jumping, though, Ballard says there are still unique challenges for female professionals as well as young girls getting into the sport.

“I feel that female professionals are always a little bit behind the eight-ball,” says Ballard. “Being a female, and especially a young female, in the business is a little bit of a disadvantage because you lose that “charm” of being a man. If you take a look at the younger level of the sport, where it’s a lot of young girls, a young girl is always going to look up to, for the most part, a male rider, sort of as a role model.”

That is why it is important to draw awareness to representation imbalances while also highlighting women’s achievements, says Mannix.

“I think that there’s a great level playing field, so when I actually went through and looked at the split between men and women in the top 100, I was amazed at how few women there were.”

“I was really proud of Erynn to read that she was a top-ranked woman in the world. I think that’s really something to celebrate and something to promote,” says Mannix. “And as much as I love that all of the men and women compete together, I think [it’s important to] be able to highlight when we have really successful female results. Like absolutely, you can be at the very top of the sport, professionally. These are the types of riders that are getting there.”

Becoming one of those top riders, and having the opportunity to make young girls feel represented in the sport, is part of why these results are a “huge accomplishment” for Ballard.

“It’s hard to imagine that these people that I’ve looked up to my entire career… I’m sort of sitting right there with them. There are people that are younger than me, and riders that are younger than me, and girls that are younger than me, and all of a sudden I’ve become a huge influence on their life, and I think that’s pretty cool,” says Ballard.

“And if you want to be the best female rider in the world, which is a crazy status, then you give it everything you’ve got, but it doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time, and it takes work, and it takes opportunity, and it requires taking risks. But if it’s something that you really want, I am proof that it’s not unachievable, because it is.”