Ground-Breaking Journalist Wall a Pioneer for Female Turf Writers

Legends
Racing Hall of Fame writer Maryjean Wall at Keeneland. (Photo by Mark Cornelison)

Perhaps if Maryjean Wall had been born 10 or 15 years later, she would have been a jockey instead of a pioneer for female journalists.

A native of Canada, she became enthralled with horse racing after reading a copy of Turf and Sport Digest previewing the 1961 Kentucky Derby. That sparked an avid interest in the sport and its equine athletes, and as she became a teenager she considering becoming a jockey.

But at the time, in the 1960s, there were no female jockeys. The sport was still several years away from 1969, when Diane Crump became the first women to ride in a pari-mutuel race.

“I couldn’t be a jockey because I was a woman, so I looked for another way to make a difference in the industry,” Wall said.

Instead, she went to the University of Kentucky to hone her writing skills and expand her education. Wall then embarked on a path that made her a trailblazer along the lines of jockeys such as Crump and Penny Ann Early.

In 1967, Wall took a job as a general assignment reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper. Six years later, in 1973, her love of horse racing and artistic flair for writing led to her being named as the turf writer for the Kentucky paper.

“It was Secretariat’s Triple Crown year, what could have been better?” she said.

In the process, Wall became the first woman to work as a turf writer for a major daily newspaper and opened a door so that today the sport is filled with female turf writers and photographers.

“I still look back and it was a great run,” said Wall, who is now retired and living in Kentucky but still writes on occasion for the Herald-Leader. “I take pride in what I did. I worked hard. I had to because I had to constantly prove myself to people who did not believe women should do that job. I’m not sure if the younger female writers appreciate all of us who made it possible for them, but that’s a natural thing. I take pride in my career because I had a lot of bridges to pass. We didn’t even have restrooms for women for the longest time.”

Wall says the obstacles she faced could not compare with the anger and resentment hurled at the ground-breaking female riders, but she had a clear understanding of what they experienced in their battle for equality.

“They were facing prejudice and they couldn’t get many mounts in the early days,” Wall said. “Trainers thought they weren’t as strong as the male riders. It seemed like for some of them the only way to get mounts was to become someone’s girlfriend.”

Aside from battling for acceptance in a male-dominated industry, Wall faced resistance in gaining equal access during her early years on the beat. Back then, years before sports began using interview rooms, reporters would talk to jockeys in their locker room, often while the riders were dressing.

Wall remembers how male writers were ushered into the room, but she was barred from entering.

“It made you combative when you heard over and over that you weren’t a sportswriter and people were getting in your way and trying to stop you from doing your job. It was hard for me,” she said.

 She remembers how during the 1970s when Bill Shoemaker rode in a race at Keeneland, she was not allowed in the jockeys’ room to speak to the Hall of Famer while her male colleagues were given a green light to enter.

“That was breaking the law,” Wall said.

The Herald-Leader backed Wall by threatening to sue Keeneland and as a result she said a new policy was adopted, barring everyone from the jockeys’ room and having the riders meet outside it with all reporters after races.

“Track management wasn’t ready for me to be there or to accept me. They were in disbelief that a woman was in this job. Sometimes you had to hit racetrack management over the head with a 2x4 to get them to pay attention,” Wall said. “Keeneland responded to the lawsuit by saying no one could go in, which was fine with me since I just wanted equal access.”

Wall said she was generally accepted by horsemen, who appreciated her deep understanding of riding and caring for a horse, and her fellow turf writers, though she said the process for admitting her to the National Turf Writers Association (now National Turf Writers and Broadcasters) took longer than usual.

As the years passed, Wall noticed a change in attitudes, especially as more women entered the field.

“Change happened gradually, so I really couldn’t tell when things were completely different. I guess people finally got used to seeing me in the press box,” Wall said.

While shattering a glass ceiling, Wall received a bevy of accolades for the quality of work. She was honored with Eclipse Awards for outstanding newspaper writing for writing in 1980, 1997, and 1999 and twice was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2008, the year she left the Herald-Leader to complete work on her doctorate in history, she received the Walter Haight Award for career excellence in turf writing from the NTWAB. Wall was inducted into the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009.

Wall received racing’s highest honor for a turf writer last year when she was inducted into the Joe Hirsch Media Roll of Honor at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame at Saratoga.

“There had been a few other ladies break into covering racing before Maryjean, but she was exceptional in the length of her career and breadth of knowledge she developed,” said Edward L. Bowen, chairman of the Joe Hirsch Media Roll of Honor Committee. “She embodied that exemplary combination of never falling into treating the subject as routine and never losing the urge to keep learning. That she persevered to earn her doctorate is illustrative of her pride in the professions of writing and history.”

Her induction was a proud moment for her and one that resonated with other women who followed her path and have enjoyed a career in the media end of the horse racing industry free of the restrictions of past decades.

“She put together an amazing body of work and is one of the leading historians of the sport in our industry,” said Amy Owens, who has worked at several turf publications and is now a communications associate at Keeneland. “She influenced me in a positive way. She showed women like me that horse racing was a place where we could get involved and I’m thankful for that.”


Fun facts about Maryjean Wall

  • Having completed her doctorate in history, she is now Dr. Maryjean Wall.
  • She wrote the books, ““How Kentucky Became Southern: A Tale of Outlaws, Horse Thieves, Gamblers, and Breeders” and “Madam Belle: Sex, Money, and Influence in a Southern Brothel.”
  • Wall is also a three-time recipient of the John Hervey Award for coverage of harness racing.

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