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Rosie Napravnik
Sport: Thoroughbred Horse Racing
Born: February 9, 1988
Town: Mendham
Anna Rose Napravnik was born February 9, 1988 in Mendham. She was the second of three children. Her parents, Charles and Cindy, were in the horse business—her mom trained horses and ran a boarding facility and her father is a farrier, seeing to the needs of horses’ hooves. Rosie was riding ponies soon after she could walk, and broke her arm at age four after taking a spill. By age seven she was racing, and set her sights on riding in the Kentucky Derby.
During her teen years, Rosie worked for several top stables. At 16, she went to work for Dickie Small in Maryland, and he developed her as a jockey training his horses. At 17, she became a professional jockey and rode fir a time as A.R. Napravnik to hide her gender. Rosie won her first race, at Pimlico, on Ringofdiamonds in the spring of 2005. She was the leading jockey at Laurel Park that year until she fell and fractured her collarbone in November.
Rosie won 300 races in 2006, captured her first stakes race, and finished second in the Apprentice Jockey of the Year voting. Injuries curtailed her 2007 performance, but in 2008 she bounced back at age 20 to win 176 times, including 101 victories in Maryland—the most in the state—until a broken leg knocked her out for three months. Near the end of the season she began racing at Aqueduct Racetrack in New York. In 2009, Rosie won 184 races. In 2010, she won 155 races—including the graced 3 Cicada Stakes at Aqueduct—and produced nearly $10 million in prize money.
In 2011, Rosie continued to make headlines when she became the first woman to win the Louisiana Stakes, aboard Pants on Fire, and captured the track title at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans for the first of four straight years. She also rode Pants on Fire in the Kentucky Derby, fulfilling a lifelong dream. She finished 9th. In 2012, Rosie became the first female rider to win the Kentucky Oaks, a grade 1 stakes race held the Friday before the Kentucky Derby. Later that season, she won the Breeders Cup Juvenile. At year’s end she ranked among the Top 10 jockeys with more than $12 million in winnings.
In 2013, Rosie finished 5th in the Kentucky Derby and third in the Preakness aboard Mylute. She also rode in the Preakness, becoming the first woman to ride in all here Triple Crown races in the same year. In 2014, she repeated this feat and also won the Kentucky Oaks again. For a time, Rosie was the second-ranked jockey in the country, but an injury kept her off the track for a month. She bounced back and had picked up where she left off by the end of summer.
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