Linda Jones

Linda Christine Jones (born 1952) is a New Zealand former thoroughbred horse racing jockey. She was the first woman to be granted a race licence in New Zealand in 1977 and the first in Australasia to achieve four victories in a single day the following year. Jones finished second in the 1978/1979 Jockey Premiership with 18 winners by Christmas 1978. She later became the first woman to ride a Derby winner in each of the Australasia, Europe, and North America continents and the first female to beat professional male entrants at an Australian-registered event. Injury prompted Jones to retire in 1980; she had achieved 65 victories within 18 months. She is an inductee of both the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame and the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame.

Career In 1952, Jones was born in Auckland, New Zealand. She partook in the 1970 Powder Puff Derby as one of eleven jockeys in an era when women were not allowed to be jockeys. Jones was later invited to compete at a meet in Brazil in 1975 and told her husband Alan Jones she wanted to be a jockey. She went on to win the 1975 Qantas International Women's Handicap at Rotorua, The application was rejected on the grounds of her being "too old, married and not strong enough"; they felt she would claim men's jockey's winnings and would not receive the appropriate dressing rooms. Following heavy pressure from the racing journalist John Costello, the NZRC approved female racing licences in July 1977,

She was apprenticed to her husband, at Matamata. She went on to ride Holy Toledo to victory in the 1979 Grade II Wellington Derby that took place that January, becoming the first woman to ride a Derby winner in each of the Australasia, Europe, and North America continents. Jones had achieved 65 victories as a jockey within 18 months. Jones accepted that she possibly could never fully recover to peak fitness and retired from racing in September 1980. She went into semi-retirement and began training race horses and achieved success with them in Australia in the 1980s.

Personal life She and her husband have a daughter who was born in 1977. Jones was appointed MBE in the 1979 Queen's Birthday Honours "for her contribution to racing and women's rights".

Profile Jones was listed between . In 1979, she sought not to enter one or two events of a single meeting as she combined her career with a holiday.