Before Kathy and Diane, before Barbara Jo and Cheryl, before Julie and Rosie, there was Lillian.

Lillian Jenkinson Holder was born to ride horses. She crawled between the legs of draft horses her father used on the family’s Nebraska farm and only consented to having her infected tonsils removed when her grandparents offered to buy her a pony if she did. Full grown, she stood no more than 4’10”, but on the bush tracks of the 20^th century, she towered over her competition, winning more than 3,000 races in her 47-year career. Holder’s naturally lithe frame, hardened by the tough tasks of farm life, and her innate connection with horses made her one of the best riders many in her area had seen. Yet her long career on those bush tracks and her pursuit of a license to ride on this country’s pari-mutuel racetracks remained a story hidden by a lack of opportunity and the passage of time … until now.

The new book “Jockey Queen: Lillian Jenkinson Holder, Horse Racing’s Fearless Lady,” published by Rowman & Littlefield, recounts not only this horsewoman’s pursuit of her dreams but also the Jenkinson family’s life in the sport we all love, a story that shares what it takes to make a life with horses and adds another dimension to the history of women in racing.

A Rider and Her Family

Author Roger Peach saw Holder in action as a young man showing dairy cattle at state fairs, which gave him an up close and personal look at her skills in the saddle: “One day, we took a little bit of a break, my boss and I, and we walked up to the horse track to watch the races. And in one of these races, the jockeys and their horses were coming around the final turn, and it was tough competition. They were hellbound for the wire,” Peach recalled. “And I noticed this one jockey in the lead kind of really close in on our horse driving for the wire. And I saw this long hair coming out the back of a cap. So, I asked my boss, ‘Who’s that?’ And he said, ‘That’s Lillian Holder.’ I was just surprised to see a female as a jockey. She was unique, and I never forgot her.”

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That memory led Peach to include a story about Holder in his self-published book “Swamp Tales,” which recounts his time on the state fair circuit, but he felt that was not enough of a tribute to this jockey and the Jenkinson family. Seeking more information about her, he reached out to Holder’s niece Jan Yarberry, seeking more personal perspectives on this memorable rider. However, it took some convincing to get Yarberry on board with Peach’s project.

“That was because I had read articles that supposedly had quotes about her, and they all portrayed her to be an ignorant country bumpkin,” Yarberry shared. “And she was very intelligent, very well-spoken, so I did not want her to be portrayed that way.” Other write-ups about Holder also focused on “what a mean, horrible person she was when she rode and all of this kind of thing. And it just wasn’t true. The reason these jocks ran her down was because they couldn’t outride her, and that’s the only way they could justify why she could outride them.”

Once the two started talking more about this bush-track icon, Peach soon discovered that “it wasn’t just her. It was this whole clan, from her mother down to her sisters, women who did it themselves.”

“Jockey Queen” centers on Holder, tracing her career from her youth riding in pony races to her early adult years learning how to survive on the rough bush-track circuit, traveling around the Midwest state fair scene and riding multiple mounts in a day. Yet the book is also a story of a family surviving and thriving thanks to their steadfast work ethic and commitment to horses and each other.

Alongside Holder, the oldest, Peach profiles her four sisters Louise, Lorraine, Ellen Viola (who went by Babe, Yarberry’s mother), and Miriam, and their parents, William James and Sarah Elizabeth Hall Jenkinson. The family raised dairy cows and horses on their Nebraska farm in the first half of the 20^th century, and as Lillian found success in the saddle, they developed their own breeding and racing program, which sustained them through the Great Depression and beyond.

The Jenkinson family, from their father, William, to the youngest daughter, Miriam, all played a role in their multi-decade career as both breeder and owner, with horses like Just Beans, a winner on both bush tracks and the larger pari-mutuel circuits. Just Beans would give rise to a line of racehorses often raced in one sister’s name and ridden by Holder.

“That was so important, the family aspect of it, because none of them would have been able to do anything that they did without the other one,” Yarberry shared. “Lillian, once she got ruled off, she couldn’t have continued to ride. She wouldn’t have had horses to ride without mom [sister Ellen ‘Babe’ Yarberry] and without the sisters all kicking in their share.”

This era of the nomadic pursuit of success on half-mile ovals at state fairs comes to life through Peach’s research and Yarberry’s memories, scenes akin to those you might see in a movie like “Seabiscuit.”

“That’s kind of how I’ve explained ‘Jockey Queen’ to some people,” Peach said. “If they’ve seen ‘Seabiscuit,’ they knew some of the tricks that were played during races and so forth. [Riding on those tracks] was a battle.”

At the heart of “Jockey Queen” are those contests for respect, on the track and off, that inform Holder’s journey from a child enamored with horses to a woman making her living and her legend in the saddle.

Overdue Recognition

Through contemporary print sources and extensive interviews with other riders and participants in the fair circuit of the early and mid-20^th century, “Jockey Queen” builds the world that Holder knew, sharing the challenges of racing against men in an era resistant to women as jockeys and the family’s firm commitment to riding and racing honestly even when others seek any means necessary to gain an edge.

Alongside newspaper articles recounting Holder’s exploits in the saddle and interviews with her contemporaries, Peach’s conversations with Yarberry yielded more insights about the Jenkinsons, rich details that recreate an earlier era in both American life and racing. The memories from those who knew Holder during her nearly five decades in the saddle provide a more immersive experience, going beyond print sources and adding color and life to their moment.

Those half-mile tracks on the state fair circuit that became the family’s bread and butter often served as training grounds for jockeys that would soon pursue success at the next level, their experience preparing them for the higher stakes of riding for big-name trainers and owners. Holder dreamed of being a part of that scene as well, a theme that runs throughout the book. Despite her clear excellence as a rider, an observation shared by her contemporaries including Hall of Fame trainer Jack Van Berg, the long-haired rider and her family’s stable could only muster local recognition – until now. With Peach’s new book, Lillian Jenkinson Holder and the Jenkinson family have their long overdue remembrance available to readers everywhere.

“Usually, girls would get married and have kids and forget about it, but that’s not what she wanted to do,” Yarberry said of her aunt and her place within the sport’s long memory. “She deserves to be remembered and respected for what she endured. The fact that she rode for 47 years in horrible conditions and won races, she needs to be remembered.”

That is what “Jockey Queen” brings to the canon of books on the sport: a recognition of a story left untold for far too long, one that both rights a wrong and leaves readers with, as Yarberry observed, “an appreciation for what the people that came before us endured so that we could have the lives we have today.”