As we celebrate International Women’s Day (8th March 2025), we’re taking the opportunity to look back at a definitive time in history when Ellen Chaloner, a trailblazing trainer became the first woman to be given a permit to train horses by the Jockey Club in 1886. Her biggest achievement came in 1887 – a year on from when she obtained her permit – when her filly Jersey Lily, who had run unplaced in that year’s Oaks won the Triennial Stakes at Royal Ascot, now the Jersey Stakes, to become the first woman to train a winner at the Royal meeting. Ellen’s son George rode the filly. George missed a Derby victory coming 2nd in 1895 and 3rd in 1894.
Until recently Ellen was buried in an unmarked grave in Newmarket cemetery, situated across the road from the Rowley Mile course, but following a campaign by members of her family, led by Marietta Krikhaar, Ellen’s great granddaughter, and supported by the Jockey Club, a beautifully designed headstone recognising the trailblazing trainer was erected in October 2023.
Ellen was part of a legendary horse racing family. Her father Johnny Osborne Senior was a trainer in Yorkshire, her brother Johnny Osborne junior was a twelve-time classic winning jockey, who won the Derby in 1869 while her husband Tom was a classic winning jockey who also won the Derby at Epsom in 1863 on Macaroni. Macaroni was trained by James Godding at Palace House stables in Newmarket, now the home of the National Horse Racing Museum.
Steeped in racing Ellen took over training horses from her husband Tom, who had trained the winner of the 1884 2000 Guineas, after he died at only 46 in 1886. Official licenses did not come into force until the early part of the twentieth century, but The Jockey Club granted her a permit to train horses on the heath, effectively a license to train horses.
“I couldn’t begin to imagine the stumbling blocks a woman would have had to be accepted as a racehorse trainer in the 1880s” said Newmarket based trainer Gay Kelleway, who as a jockey became the first woman to ride a winner at Royal Ascot in 1987.
Research by Dr Esther Harper, who completed a PHD in the history of horse racing when she worked at the National Horse Racing Museum between 2013 and 2017, confirmed that the 1891 census recorded Ellen’s profession as a trainer of racehorses, with two of her sons, (she had seven) and her only daughter living with her, her sons listed as jockeys/grooms, three stable men, three other apprentice jockeys, and a domestic servant all working for her at Osborne House. In 1893 Ellen was training seventeen horses. Osborne House is now the overflow yard for Group 1 winning trainer Sir Mark Prescott, at Heath House stables. “When you consider the number of people who reported to her and the number of horses, she was responsible for, it was quite a significant business she was running,” said Dr Harper.
Ellen retired from training 1894 and one of her sons took over at Osborne House, but we know she remained active in Newmarket well into her nineties. Ellen was a regular racegoer and highly respected in the Suffolk town. “She is clearly a well-known and respected figure at the sales and buyers would ask her opinion on yearlings and broodmares,” said Dr Harper.
A high court case, eighty years after Ellen began training, officially gave women the right to train racehorses in Britain. The Jockey Club finally recognising the claims of Florence Nagle and Norah Wilmot.
Since 1966 Women trainers have gone on to win some of the major races in this country, particularly in the National Hunt game. Jenny Pitman becoming the first to win the Grand National with Corbiere in 1983, a feat she repeated in 1995. Venetia Williams, Sue Smith and Lucinda Russell, who helped with ‘The Paddock and The Pavilion podcast’ have all since trained the winner of the world’s most famous race. Glory has also followed in the Cheltenham Gold Cup with Jenny Pitman winning in 1984 and 1991, while Henrietta Knight won the race on three successive occasions with Best Mate in the 21st century.
But there is no mistaking that Ellen Chaloner was the first woman trainer in 1886.
“It’s semi worrying that an encyclopaedia of British horse racing doesn’t mention her, but concentrates on the court case of 1966. I think she deserves significantly more recognition than she gets” said racing historian Tim Cox.
Ellen Chaloner is now recognised on the BETFRED 2000 Guineas Day at Newmarket Racecourse, in the form of The British EBF Ellen Chaloner Stakes.
