Rosie Napravnik

Rosie Napravnik was the first female jockey ever to win the Kentucky Oaks and did so twice in three years. She is only the second female jockey to win a Breeders’ Cup race and the only female to win more than one. Her 5th place finish in the Kentucky Derby, aboard Mylute in 2012, is the highest placing finish of the six female jockeys who have ridden the race. She is the only woman to have ridden in all three Triple Crown races and has ridden each race multiple times, and all in a single season.

Napravnik had immediate success on the racetrack, winning her very first race. Throughout her career of 9 1/2 years, she raced at all of the premier racetracks in the U.S. and Canada and was regularly hired by the most prominent trainers in the industry to pilot their horses in the most prestigious races in the world. She was also privileged to ride in the Shurgar Cup at Ascot Racecourse in England. Napravnik holds numerous riding titles at multiple racetracks across the U.S.

During her career, Napravnik supported multiple Thoroughbred aftercare organizations. She joined the Board of Old Friends Thoroughbred Retirement and participated in numerous benefits to support that charity, among a variety of other organizations. In 2013, she participated in a demonstration on her OTTB, “Sugar” (JC: Old Ironsides), at the Thoroughbreds For All event, hosted by the Retired Racehorse Project, which took place at the New Vocations facility in Lexington, KY.

The magnitude of her success on the track made it difficult for the racing community to understand her retiring at the peak of her career, in 2014. Rosie and her husband, successful racing trainer Joe Sharp, had decided to try for their first child together. She was 6 weeks pregnant when she won the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Distaff aboard Untapable.

Although she is now retired from riding races, Napravnik still has a strong passion for Thoroughbreds! She dabbled in eventing on her OTTB while she was still racing but now has fully immersed herself into the sport horse industry while supporting her husband’s successful string on the racetrack. Her passion has evolved into a private training operation, transitioning retired racehorses into second careers. Going back to her roots, Napravnik mainly focuses on eventing in her training program but also uses her experience with Hunters, Jumpers, and Fox Hunting, to train each horse toward the discipline in which it is most likely to excel. Many of Rosie’s training influences come from her mother, who has trained and coached eventing horses and riders for Rosie’s entire life. In recent years, Napravnik has been coached and mentored by eventing’s 1994 World Equestrian Games Individual Silver Medalists, Dorothy Crowell, whose best horse was Molokai, an OTTB.