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- Eva Ring (1911–1989) was among the first, substantially few, female jockeys to ride and train winning race horses in Canada in the 1930s–1940s. It was a time in North American history when women were not permitted to obtain a jockey license or ride in flat races alongside their male counterparts, but Ring was a trailblazer and managed to overcome many of the obstacles of her time. Discrimination was not a situation unique to North America; rather, it was a global issue in the male dominated Sport of Kings. To be able to ride, some women would show-up at the racetrack disguised as a male jockey. Ring's early photographs serve as a testament to her disguise. Ring competed as a female jockey at venues where a jockey license was not required, such as bush track races, county fairs, and local recreational parks and exhibition centers where female jockeys were the exhibit. Some of those venues sported a grandstand and the semblance of a race oval but without a starting gate, such as the South Side Athletic Park in Edmonton. Ring was considered "well-known to horse and racing fans", and because of her outstanding riding abilities, was covered as a favorite in the Sports section of regional newspapers, such as the Edmonton Journal. Sometime around mid to late 1940s, Ring retired as a jockey and focused her attention on training racehorses. She was a licensed trainer, and one of few female racehorse trainers on the Western Circuit in Canada. She attracted the attention of racehorse enthusiast, Bill Little, a hotel owner in Rosetown, Saskatchewan. He was an up and coming breeder of Thoroughbred racehorses, and owned a large breeding operation known as Swift Water Stud. Little hired Ring as his trainer sometime around 1946, and considered her and his stable manager, Fred Jones, to be "a winning combination". Ring was not only training his horses to run, Little said "she breaks them and gallops them" and "does about everything but ride in the races." Whenever Ring arrived at a race with Pussy Boots and Liberty Boy in Little's string of racehorses, it attracted media attention. (en)
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