Well, it’s closer to what I said: “the top flat jockeys in the USA are Latin American.” But the USA is dreary at horse racing, generally. Latin Americans aren’t the top/best in the world. They’re a healthy percentage of the best - 6 of the top 20 at the moment, working out to 30% - but the top five flat jockeys on the planet at this precise moment are one Australian, two Frenchmen and two Brits.
However, you did ask someone who knows about this. The Irish presence in flat and jump racing around the world is indeed less about Irish people being short as a nation, because they aren’t particularly. It’s much, much more about the national fondness for flat and jump racing - don’t forget about jump racing - the long history of breeding and training, and the resulting production of racing dynasties. Racing dynasties are strongly generational and influential, with families tending to produce clusters of people who are especially suitable for the sport.
Ireland and the United Kingdom, for four hundred years the breeding grounds of the Thoroughbred, tend to foster racing dynasties of people as well as horses. Prosperous and effective jockeys retire to other areas of the industry, marrying other horsepeople, producing crops of children, and creating familial networks radiating through the industry. And then the children do it too.
Some of the things passed down through these lineages are clear genetic tendencies to smaller frames, which is noticeable. (Oddly, a lot of generational jockeys seem to be born prematurely as well.) Much of it is familial temperament/obsession: people who cannot comprehend NOT riding horses. Quite a lot is the ability to comfortably normalise and tolerate the working conditions, because you were brought up within them. And a significant amount is that it’s much easier to be a fabulous rider if you have trained for it since infancy. If your grandfather put you up on his racehorses before you could walk, you and your siblings and cousins will have a decent advantage at riding horses professionally.
You are not looking for “the nation with the smallest people in the world,” you are looking for “people who want the job.” The Japanese jockey academy, the only pathway to being a race-rider in Japan, graduated no new jockeys in 2026. Some of that is lack of interest in the profession, some of it is lack of desire to live by the particularly punitive lifestyle standards imposed on jockeys in Japan, and probably a little bit is that naturally smaller people are fairly rare and not interested. The Irish racing academy at Kildare generates 30 jockeys a year, plus the dozens of training yard apprentices and pony-racing students being “home-trained” in the profession. You have to be willing and able. And desire and ability run in families.
Which is, in fact, what my book is about! It’s about a racing dynasty. My jockeyposting 🏇 and Killie tags have a lot of resources.
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