Why are jockeys generally short?
by 
Taylor Renee
ANSWERS: 8
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A person of shorter/smaller stature is preferred because you want the horse to carry the least weight possible when it's racing.
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Before each race, a jockey must weigh-in. if he wins the race, he is paid by his weight. so........the shorter, the better, the less weight, etc. if you believe this, i have a whale-catcher to sell you. sorry!
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If a guy was over 6 feet tall it would look too funnt has their feet would probably be near the ground due to the weight of the person.
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The idea is to have less weight on the horse and smaller people tend to weigh less. But, this also depends on whether or not the horses need to be handicapped for certain races, so sometimes it's not a major issue. When a horse runs a handicap race, weights are added to the better horses to drop the advantage over the other horses. Red Pollard, who rode Seabiscuit, was big for a jockey and he was only 5'7". Take into account that Seabiscuit was small for a racehorse, at 15 hands.
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not sure why
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light weight will be less burden on the horse in a race
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Not only are they generally short, they starve themselves and use diuretics to lose water weight. It's done to put less weight on a horse.
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Genetics probably. I seriously doubt any of them got shorter to join the sport. It was probably more of a situation where a shorty says to themselves So, what's left that I CAN be good at. I don't think its so much why jockeys are short but more a case of short people BECOME jockeys because they are good at it. And you'd have to like horses.
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