By Darren Cartwright
For more than 12 hours a day, Danielle Jones is, either leading, riding, or calming a thoroughbred as one of racing's indispensable silent achievers.
Her day starts before the break of dawn riding trackwork and ends late afternoon, at a different course, loading horses at a race meeting as one of the state’s few female barrier attendants.
If she had a choice, she would be a jockey but that never quite worked out, although she could not be happier with her lot in an industry that she is extremely enthusiastic about.
“I love doing jump-outs and I would have wanted to have a go at it (being a jockey), but I’m not built for it and would not make the weight easy enough,” she said.
“I start at 4 am and keep riding until the track closes and it's good fun being involved on race day as well behind the gates and helping.
“It’s all about doing what you need to do to help the horse out and I enjoy doing it and I love the work.
“It makes it easier to go to work every day.”
Her path to being a barrier attendant (pictured), started three years ago when, at 18 years of age, the Beaudesert Race Club track manager asked if she wanted to work on race day.
At the time, she was in her first year as a freelance track rider at Beaudesert, following her passion to work with horses.
“I moved out to Beaudesert after high school to learn to ride track work and break in horses about three years, and when I started riding work the track manager wanted me to work behind the gates,” she said.
“I’ve been doing it ever since.”
Not only does Danielle work behind the starting stalls on race day at Beaudesert, she has been so impressive, she also works at several tracks across southeast Queensland.
Danielle's career behind the gates has expanded into near full-time occupation after being invited to join the barrier attendant team at Gold Coast Turf Club, she said.
“One of the boys that came out from the Gold Coast said they would get me down there, and it just grew from meeting people,” she said.
“And they have asked me to go around to different tracks, and it was good to be asked because you then know that you are doing the right thing and are doing the job, they have asked you to do.”
Besides Gold Coast and Beaudesert, among the tracks, Danielle leads or calms horses behind the barriers, or assists jockeys in the gates are Kilcoy, Warwick, Ipswich, and Gatton.
“It’s anything from keeping an eye on the horses to making sure their gear is right or seeing if the jockey wants a hand,” said Danielle, who is pictured riding trackwork.
“You lead them around and load them and if one of them is playing up, you do your best to keep it under control and not let them rear up or go under the gates.”
About the only job she rarely performs is cuffing hands with other barrier attendants behind a horse and giving them some encouragement to enter the gate.
A person needs to know their limitations, she says.
“I try to but usually that is a job for the bigger fellas and sometimes, jockeys ask for someone a bit stronger to help, but overall, they are all pretty good about it," she laughs.
"It can be intimidating as a young woman going in to work with them, but all the blokes are happy to help and have been awesome."